The Hidden Insight Into Top Favorites’ Form in Tour Opener

First blood to Jonas Vingegaard, but a closer look at Saturday’s Tour de France team time trial gives a fascinating insight into how the GC favorites themselves are going.

The race against the clock was a collaborative effort and also a very strategic one, with the strength of squads and the tactics used blurring the lines between the collective effort and each individual team leaders’ form.

But buried in the Tour de France results communique on Saturday was a pointer to how each rider could fare in the hilly days ahead, Sunday included.

Tadej Pogačar was only third fastest but ended the day in the polka dot jersey of King of the Mountains. The reason? The UAE Emirates-XRG rider covered the final3.7km in a time of 4:48”.25, a sector of the course which included two climbs, including the ramp up to the finish.

Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) was second, two seconds behind, with Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) a further .57 seconds back.

Looking further down the list, GC riders Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling), Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) covered that sector 11 seconds slower than Pogačar, being seventh, eighth and nineth quickest.

Outside the top ten

Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG) was 12th, 15 seconds back, although he did bury himself for Pogačar close to the end.

He was one place ahead of Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who yielded 19 seconds. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) was given the same time.

Other big names lost more ground. These included Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost, 39th), Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar Team, 46th) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost, 124th).

So what to make of it all? What’s interesting is that ASO didn’t opt to include the final climb only. This means that the above-named riders still had teammates during part of that 3.7km, making comparisons a little blurred.

Still, Pogačar will take encouragement from how fast he went uphill, and indicated as much after the stage.

“Good news. I have climbing legs. It was quite short, the climb,” he said. “Isaac did really an amazing job. He is such a good kid.”

Of course there are much longer climbs to come in the race and how individual riders fared over a short section of the course does not reflect how they will fare in the high mountains.

However it is a measure of explosiveness, which will be highly relevant in the punchy days ahead.

In fact Pidcock can take encouragement from another stat released by Tour organizers ASO. Namely, that he was quickest on Saturday over the final 800 meters, averaging 40.7 km/h despite a gradient of seven percent.

Pogačar describes Sunday’s stage as tricky, and indicated it would be for a certain type of rider.

“It is for puncheurs, I think it is going to be really hectic in the final, also before the final it is really complicated sometimes.”

Given his time loss Saturday and his proximity to the jersey, as well as his ravenous drive for wins, expect him to try something in the finale and see just how well his legs are going. The same will apply on stages three and four, all apéritifs before the tougher stage 6 finale.

As for Vingegaard, Evenepoel and others, they too will go for it in the days ahead. It could be a very dramatic first week.