Tadej Pogacar could hardly help himself as he took his fifth stage victory of this year’s Tour de France, with a third overall crown all but sure to follow on Sunday.
Pogacar said he would be happy for a breakaway to win stage 20 from Nice to the Col de la Couillole, but Remco Evenepoel’s attempt to test Jonas Vingegaard’s grip on second place played into Pogacar’s hands and allowed him to stretch his overall advantage yet further to five minutes 14 seconds.
There may not be the usual ceremonial final stage into Paris this year as a 34km time trial between Monaco and Nice awaits on Sunday but the podium places feel set all the same, with Evenepoel’s deficit to Vingegaard now two minutes and 50 seconds.
“I enjoyed it very much,” Pogacar said. “It didn’t go as planned but I couldn’t be happier with that, another stage win. I’m really happy, just one more day, a time trial tomorrow and I think I’m going to enjoy that as well…
“If you told me (this situation) before the Tour I would not believe it and it’s just out of this world.”
Pogacar’s achievements just keep piling up. He becomes only the second man to win five mountain stages of a single Tour after Gino Bartali in 1948, and after bossing the Giro d’Italia earlier this season, he is on the verge of completing the first Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.
True to his word, Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates had been happy to let the breakaway go, their job effectively done with the Slovenian’s stage win in Isola a day earlier.
But after an emotional Vingegaard had admitted to his struggles on Friday, Evenepoel set his Soudal-QuickStep team to work in a bid to dislodge the defending champion from second place, chasing down a strong 10-man breakaway whose lead was never more than four-and-a-half minutes.
Evenepoel tried two attacks midway up the Couillole but could not shake Vingegaard, who then countered to distance the Belgian while dragging Pogacar up the mountain with him.
The yellow jersey could just bide his time on Vingegaard’s wheel as they reeled in Richard Carapaz and Enric Mas, the last two survivors of the breakaway, before Pogacar sprinted through the final few hundred metres to claim yet another win.
Vingegaard crossed the line seven seconds later, putting 46 seconds into Evenepoel on the road and six seconds in bonuses.
It was a show of defiance from the two-time Tour winner, who was left in tears on Friday as his challenge for yellow effectively ended, with the impact of the horrible injuries he suffered in April laid bare.
“If I will finish second I will probably rate it as one of the biggest results of my career with where I was coming from in the last three months, breaking almost every bone in my upper body on the right side and puncturing both lungs,” the two-time Tour winner said.
“Where I am now, I’m just incredibly proud of the journey me and my family have been on.”
The 27-year-old offered a wry smile as he admitted he had hoped Pogacar might have allowed him the stage win, but he always knew what was coming.
“You can always hope but it’s cycling and I don’t blame him at all,” Vingegaard said. “I would probably do the same. I’m just happy with my performance and how I came back from yesterday.”
Carapaz finished third on the stage, having done enough to secure the king of the mountains classification.