Tour de France stage 14: Thymen Arensman climbs to solo victory atop summit to Luchon-Superbagnères as Pogačar extends overall lead

Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) took a solo win on the savage stage 14 summit finish of Superbagnères. He held off the sparring pair of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma–Lease a Bike), gifting Ineos Grenadiers a rare return to Grand Tour glory.

Pogačar and Vingegaard emerged through the fragments of breakaway and chase groups of the stage's early kilometres, from which Arensman was the sole survivor.

He held a narrow lead of just over one minute against the surging accelerations of the two main yellow jersey contenders, who rode free of the major favourites group with 4km remaining. Unable to drop one another, Pogačar would prove the strongest in the final sprint to take second place on stage 14, along with a five-second margin and accompanying bonus seconds.

Behind them, British rider Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) was the strongest of the remaining contenders. He finished fourth, just over one minute behind Pogačar.

Pogačar's margin over Vingegaard is now 4:13 in the general classification, and 7:53 over third place Florian Lipowitz (Soudal-QuickStep).

Onley's performance today was enough to move him to fourth position overall, but at a yawning 9:18 margin to Pogačar.

"Today was probably one of the hardest mountain stages I've ever done," Vingegaard said after the race finish. "It was a hard day, I think, for everyone."

Visma–Lease a Bike had both Sepp Kuss and Simon Yates in the day's early breakaway, sparking speculation of a subtle tactical plan. However, Vingegaard downplayed the suggestion.

"Basically, to go for the stage, actually," he explained when asked why they were positioned ahead. "We wanted to try to win the stage with one of them."

"They couldn't follow Arensman in the front – he did a good job," Vingegaard added. "He did a good performance on the last climb. So congratulations to him."

Arensman, predictably, was somewhat more euphoric in his reflections on his stage victory.

"Wow. I can't really believe it," Arensman said after the stage finish. "Going through my first Tour, I just wanted to experience everything. I had to be really patient in the first week because it was all pretty punchy, and I had to wait until the mountains. The first opportunity I got, I was already second on the Le Mont-Dore stage, which was amazing, an amazing experience in my first Tour. But this is unbelievable now."

Asked about the stage's tactics, with two Ineos riders in the breakaway, Arensman played down the idea of a master plan.

"The way I did it today, I think, and Carlos [Rodriguez] in that group was also super strong and did a really good job for me," he said. "But I don't know, I think I just had amazing legs and the shape of my life."

On the ascent of Superbagnères, Arensman was aware that his margin was large yet fragile in the event of an animated GC battle. "I heard the gap with the GC group, and I thought with Tadej and Jonas, three-and-a-half minutes probably isn't enough. I have to move. Maybe it's suicide, maybe it's not.

"I can't believe I held them off, but I was really fading on this last climb, the second half. But I think with all the spectators, they gave me an extra few watts, and I just could hold them off. It's crazy," he said.

"Winning a stage wasn't really the ambition when I showed up at my first Tour, to be honest. I just wanted to experience the Tour de France, the biggest race in the world."

How it unfolded

In stark contrast to the unbearable heat of stage 13, the peloton set off from a cool and rainy Pau.

Given the 5,000m of climbing and brutal 182.6km profile ahead, tensions were high - as were ambitions of breakaway glory. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) was active and aggressive among the early attacks, targeting the green jersey points on offer in the intermediate sprint.

While it was a day for sensational racing, stage 14 would prove a day of disappointment for many, and poor fortune began to unfold early, with Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) crashing into road furniture in the early kilometres. He was able to remount and continue racing, but the Lidl-Trek team leader was carrying a substantial injury.

While Skjelmose battled on, Steff Cras (TotalEnergies) became the first rider to abandon the stage. Soon after, following several stops at the medical car, the injuries would prove too substantial for Skjelmose, and he too abandoned.

Despite a flurry of attacks, by the base of the Col du Tourmalet, the peloton was largely still together, with Lidl-Trek delivering an intermediate sprint victory to Milan to further his lead in the overall sprint competition.

The Tourmalet, and real drama, was now looming ahead of the peloton.

The Tourmalet takes Evenepoel

After a difficult stage 13 time trial, all eyes were on Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) for signs of fatigue, and observers did not have to wait long.

Evenepoel was quickly dropped from the yellow jersey group, and was haemorrhaging chunks of time between conversations with his team car, and domestique Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal-QuickStep) nursing him up the incline.

A large breakaway group of about 20 riders soon formed on the climb, which thinned down to a three-man selection of Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), Einer Rubio (Movistar Team), and King of the Mountains Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious). Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) was the only major GC contender, sitting in eighth place, to be near the front of the race as he attempted to bridge to the leading trio.

While the front of the race was taking shape, Evenepoel's outlook worsened, and as the front of the race neared the 100km mark, he slowed to a crawl. After handing his bottle to a young supporter, he approached his team car and departed the race.

Meanwhile, up front, Lenny Martinez attacked the trio of riders to go solo and crested the Col du Tourmalet alone.

Behind him, in the GC favourites group, UAE Team Emirates-XRG controlled the pace in the main group, which trailed Martinez by 3:30 atop the Tourmalet.

Cols and convergence

The foggy descent from the Tourmalet saw a chase group hack away at Martinez's advantage, with Sepp Kuss (Team Visma–Lease a Bike) and Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) leading the chase.

They were soon upon the Col d'Aspin, a relatively short 5km at 7.4%, where Kuss and Paret-Peintre chipped away at the gap to Martinez.

The Frenchman went over the summit solo, but he was soon joined by the two chasers on the descent.

As the riders entered the final 50 kilometres, the leading trio was 1:50 ahead of the chasers and 3:45 ahead of the peloton. The gap may have seemed large, but it was easily toppled by the hint of a GC battle on the final two ascents.

The trio began the Col de Peyresourde with only 20 seconds over the five-man chase group, which contained Johannessen, Simon Yates (Team Visma–Lease a Bike), Arensman, Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers), and Ben O’Connor (Team Jayco AlUla).

A convergence took place on the foothills of Peyresourde, as the trio and chase group formed a new leading group of Martinez, Kuss, Paret-Peintre, Johannessen, Arensman and Rodríguez.

The climb was a short 7.1km at 8.1%. Near the halfway point, we saw Arensman take flight with a solo attack. Martinez and Johannessen briefly followed that, but they were quickly shed as Arensman made a sensational ascent to pull out a lead of over a minute by the time he reached the summit.

Ineos Grenadiers had played their hand perfectly. Behind Arensman, his teammate Carlos Rodríguez sat comfortably in the main chase group, able to ride wheels. That group, now 90 seconds behind Arensman, contained Paret-Peintre, Martinez, and Johannessen. Dropped from this chase were Sepp Kuss, Simon Yates, and Ben O'Connor, who formed a third group on the road another 30 seconds adrift.

The general classification battle remained muted, with all the top 10 but for Johannessen sitting in a controlled group of favourites nearly four minutes off the race leader. Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) assumed pace setting from Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), but there was no sign of weakness from UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

But that state of affairs was a fragile one, as the summit finish of Superbagnères threatened no end of disruption.

The summit of Superbagnères

Unlike the previous two climbs, the ascent to the ski station of Superbagnères was long enough to offer all kinds of drama, with a length of 12.4km at 7.3%.

By the time Arensman reached the base of the final climb, the two chase groups had merged behind him. This new group of seven pursuers trailed by 2:30. But the peloton loomed only 15 seconds behind, and it seemed certain the stage victory was now between Arensman and the strongest of the GC contenders. Martinez, after a brave day spent at the front of the race, peeled away from the GC groups barely 2km into the ascent.

Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma–Lease a Bike) sat behind Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), as his UAE Team Emirates-XRG lieutenants set a relentless pace which hacked away at the advantage of the new solo leader.

All eyes were on the GC battle, Pogačar's hunger for ever more stage victories, and the possibility of a challenge from Vingegaard.

Despite UAE Team Emirates-XRG setting a metronomic pace, led by Pogačar's final pacer Adam Yates, Arensman held an advantage of 2:30 into the final 5km. The gap could surely offer him a buffer for stage victory, but he was soon showing signs of labouring under the pressure exerted behind him. Meanwhile, sole chaser Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) hovered 20 seconds ahead of the GC group.

One victim of the pace was Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), who began to drift from Pogačar's GC favourites group.

The much-anticipated attack from the main group came with 4km remaining, as Vingegaard made an explosive strike on the small selection of riders - only Pogačar was able to follow, and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) impressively wrestled across the gap.

From there, with Gall swallowed up and Lipowitz dropped by successive attacks and counter-attacks between Pogačar and Vingegaard, the top three of the stage finish seemed certain, with only the order to be determined.

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