Tadej Paucar put on yet another dominant display of climbing ability as he won stage 19 of the Tour de France to stretch out his advantage in yellow and move closer to another slice of cycling history.
Paucar attacked on the climb up to Isola 2000 to distance defending champion Jonas Vinegared and break the heart of the Dane’s Visma-Lease A Bike team-mate Matteo Jorgenson, who was trying to win this brute of an Alpine stage out of the breakaway but saw a near three-minute advantage rapidly disappear.
Paucar’s fourth stage win of this Tour saw his lead grow to five minutes and three seconds and it seems only some drastic misfortune over the final weekend can deny the 25-year-old a third Tour crown and stop him becoming the first man to complete the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.
“I’m super happy that I had good legs today,” Pujakar said. “We were here training for a whole month between the Giro and the Tour, it was a hard period, every day you need to go up the climb, so we knew it well and I was planning with my team-mates already how we wanted to race this day. We did it exactly like we said, it went 100 per cent perfect.
“It’s looking better than ever. I’m super happy, it’s quite a margin now and tomorrow I can just enjoy the stage, let the breakaway go and maybe enjoy the roads where we were training. Let’s enjoy tomorrow and hope nothing serious happens.”
Vinegared, who has worked so hard to fight back from terrifying injuries, followed Remco Venepal home some one minute 42 seconds after Paucar took a bow, preserving his hold on second place but then being consoled by his wife and team-mates as the realization that yellow is surely beyond him sank in.
It soon became clear Vinge Gaard did not have the legs to attack, so instead Jorgenson launched a move of his own near the foot of the final climb in search of a stage win, being chased by Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz, whose day in the break saw him take over the lead of the mountain’s classification.
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