They had fought shoulder to shoulder for over two weeks, creating spectacular duels without ever really being able to distance themselves from each other. Until today. The individual time trial from Passy to Combloux by 22.4 km seems to have definitely addressed the Tour de France 2023: a wild one Jonas Vingegaard (Team Jumbo Visma) won the 16th stage beating his great rival the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (Uae Team Emirates) 1’38”. With today’s victory, the Dane consolidates his position yellow shirt as leader, in the general classification he is now 1’48” ahead of Pogacar himself.
A huge groove, given that the two have always dueled side by side, in one Big loop spectacular like they haven’t seen since decades. And even in this time trial, the feeling is that of having witnessed another feat that will pass to the history of cycling. Suffice it to say that the third at the finish line, the Belgian Wout Van Aert, however he took more than a minute from Pogacar and almost three from his teammate Vingegaard. Proof that these two runners are for the moment one other planet. Tomorrow the penultimate mountain stage of this Tour is scheduled, the Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc-Courchevel of 166.0 km which in fact will define the winner of this Tour and unless there are upheavals it will still be Vingegaard.
To this the fraction that foresees 4 Gpm will be decisive above all for the polka dot shirt. The uniform of the leader of the climbers at this moment is on the shoulders of Julius Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) who in the time trial earned further points by scoring the best time in the climb that led to the second-category Gpm: “Today I only had to go all out, because I had no reference points and in the end I made it. Now to defend the shirt I have to take a few more points tomorrow is Saturday“, the Italian rider told the microphones of RaiSport. It’s from the time of ‘Diablo’ Claudius Chiappucci that an Italian does not win the polka dot jersey at the Tour.
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