3 more runners will not be able to start in the Tour de France 2022, including Chris Froome ( Israel-Premier Tech), Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorsous) and Imanol Erviti (Movistar). There are 140 cranes entering the final climbing stage of this year's cycling race around France, from Lourdes touta Hacam, 143.5km long.
After finishing first in the 17th stage, Tadej Pogacar is expected to attack fiercely in the climbing stage to narrow the gap with Jonas Vingegaard - who is wearing a yellow shirt. However, things did not go as expected by the defending champion.
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) was the first attacker. Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easy post) caught up but could not keep up his speed when he was just at km 4. Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious) counterattacked. Van Aert let peloton catch up at km 13. He led the group along with a few trackers, but six other opponents, including Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma), Andreas Leknessund (DSM), Stan De Wulf (AG2R-Citroen), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Easy post), Florian Vermeersch (Lotto-Soudal) and Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco), overcame them in km 20.
At km 33, the ball-playing shirt keeper Simon Geschke was in a better position before going up to col d'Aubisque. But here, the opponents attacked fiercely, causing Geschke to say goodbye to the bean sprout shirt.
About 20 runners climbed col d'Aubisque together, Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) was crowned the first scorer, against Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Van Aert, 45 seconds against Meintjes and 3 minutes and 20 seconds against the yellow team.
Coming to colles des Spandelles, Van Aert, Pinot and Martinez took a 5km lead, while Pogacar attacked many times: 7km, 5km, 4km, 3km and 2km before the top, but Vingegaard always tried to follow. Quite scary when going downhill, when the two runners put pressure on each other, Vingegaard was under pressure from the opponent. Finally, Vingegaard swerved to overcome, while Pogacar fell into the ditch on the right side of the road.
However, the Danish racer did not take advantage of the opportunity to jump forward but proactively slowed down, waiting for the opponent to return. The fair-play action received a lot of compliments and thanks from the Slovene opponent.
With about 12.5km left, Pinot was the first to accelerate in the top trio. The trio had a one-minute, 30-second advantage over the yellow team led by Sepp Kuss, leading Vingegaard, Pogacar and Geraint Thomas by 10km before the end. For another 1km, Van Aert accelerated. Martinez chased but Pinot could not. Thomas lost contact with Kuss, Vingegaard and Pogacar, who caught Van Aert and Martinez 5km before reaching the top.
The leading trio is a combination of 3 people who owned a yellow shirt (Vingegaard), a blue shirt (Van Aert) and a white shirt (Pogacar). 4.5 km before the finish line, Pogacar. Vingegaard surpassed Van Aert with the remaining 3.5 km and won solo. This is Vingegaard's third time leading the Tour de France this year, but it was the first time he wore a yellow shirt.
The 25-year-old racer leads Pogacar by 40 seconds in the remaining 2km, before increasing to 1 minute and 4 seconds when reaching the finish line. Pogacar tried to get past Van Aert to finish second, but the gap behind Vingegaard is now 3 minutes and 26 seconds. Only a special incident happened to Vingegaard - who kept his whole shirt, in the remaining 3 stages he could take his yellow shirt away.
The 188.5km long leg 19 from Castelnau-Magnoac to Cahors will be a flat journey.
