The second batch of mountains of the Tour 2021 was the frame of Tadej Pogačar's sentence for his second victory in France. If less than a year ago, at the entrance of autumn, the Slovenian started the comeback in the Pyrenees, this time the sentence comes from the hand of the border range.
Three stages, two of them with a high finish.
Plus the day of Andorra la Vella, were the backbone of the greenest and most crowded mountain range of Spanish fans in the Tour. Of those three stages, two belonged to Tadej Pogačar, in yellow.immaculate, brutal and at the same time close to the people, in a work that continues to chisel the profile of legend that the leader of the Tour and UAE Team Emirates has been attributed.
"The stage was very hard already from the very climb to the Tourmalet, where the pace was very high," said Pogačar at the top of Luz Ardiden. My goal was the final climb, and here I gave everything. After yesterday - the victory on the Col du Portet - I achieved it again."
The words of the almost two-time Tour de France champion were braided with. the euphoric atmosphere that pervaded the UAE Team Emirates expedition on one of the most sought-after summits in the Pyrenees.. Tadej Pogačar had done it again, albeit in a different way than the day before. This time he hid among the more active Ineos and only sent his teammate Rafal Majka through when he saw that victory was within reach.
Enric Mas was the one who tightened the rope in the final stretch, in the curve towards Luz Ardiden, but there was no way, the second victory in yellow was a fact. Tadej Pogačar knew very well which pictures he wanted and which yellow ones, doing it in the Pyrenees put him on another level.
The team at his side
24 hours before Luz Ardiden, UAE Team Emirates, with McNulty, Hirschi, Rui Costa and a stellar Rafal Majka, had allowed no joy on the way to the Col du Portet, the summit that sits beyond Saint Lary to stand as the hardest and most relevant climb of the 2021 Tour.
Tadej Pogačar did not want to miss the photo on that colossus.. He sent the team to control and on the final climb he executed the plan. At eight kilometers, no less than eight from the top, he opened gas to see how only his two great rivals, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz were able to follow him.
"We did a great job, always having the breaks under control, giving me the opportunity to get to the finish with options. In the last eight kilometers I attacked several times, but Vingegaard and Carapaz made it difficult for me."
said Tadej Pogačar on the highest high finish of the Tour 2021, he said it touched by the effort and pressure, winning here demanded the best of himself.
It was a day much desired by all, Tadej Pogačar wanted his photo entering the finish line with the jersey Tour yellow and Gobik saw how for the first time one of his own achieved a victory of this size.
The Pyrenean trident, however, had started with a stalemate between the favorites in Andorra. Tadej Pogačar wasn't the Alps in the Pyrenees, but he just didn't need to be. He dominated the Tour the old-fashioned way.He made an insufferable gap for the rivals and then went on to manage the rents and his capital gains.
His was the perfect operation.
PhotosBettiniPhoto / Fizza Photo
