Jonas Vingegaard dominates Hautacam to solo victory on stage 18 (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images) Image 1 of 31
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Jonas Vingegaard stamped his authority on the Tour de France with a vengeance, winning stage 18 at Hautacam and gaining time on all his rivals. Playing off an impressive breakaway from Wout van Aert that threatened to eclipse the Dane’s absolute dominance, the Jumbo-Visma riders broke Tadej Pogačar (UAE) and the yellow postman raced away to win the stage and consolidate the position of him as chief of the clan. The Tour de France almost went south for both Vingegaard and Pogačar on the elegant descent of the Spandelles where the yellow jersey went sideways and almost fell and Pogačar, shortly after, slid out. The crash was just a minor footnote in Jumbo-Visma’s confident run that saw Van Aert join the breakaway, add points to his already sealed lead in the standings, lead the breakaway on the penultimate climb of the Col de Spandelles and still to be in front deep into the closing kilometers of the hors class climb to Hautacam. Sepp Kuss and Tiesj Benoot brought Vingegaard to the base of the climb and Kuss passed him to Van Aert to finish off the Slovenian. The green jersey, the yellow jersey and the white jersey together until the Belgian emptied his tanks and drove away from Pogačar. Pogačar raced to the finish to take second place on the day in 1:04, maintaining his lead as best young rider and second place in the GC. Van Aert, having done the work of sprinter, rouler and climbing domestique, held third place on the stage and added some unnecessary points to his tally. “It’s incredible,” Vingegaard said. “This morning I told my girlfriend and my daughter that I wanted to win for them and I did. I’m very happy and proud that I won for them. This is really for my two girls at home. “I have to thank all my teammates, they are incredible. You see Wout van Aert drop Tadej Pogacar at the end, Sepp Kuss was incredible, everyone was incredible, Tiesj [Benoot]Christopher [Laporte]Nathan [van Hooydonck] – they were all incredible. Big thanks to my teammates, I could never have done this without them.” After the scene, the Dane said he was glad it was over. “It was incredibly difficult. I’m also very happy to win the stage. Now we still have two days to go in Paris, so we have to focus and we’ll do it again day by day.” In the rest of the drama for the top 10 overall, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) was next best on the day, finishing fourth alongside David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) to extend his advantage over the podium contenders and remain third in the GC. He is third, eight minutes behind Wingegaard. Gaudu climbed over Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) in fourth with his ride, but he’s down at 11:05. Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) beat Romain Bardet (Team DSM), who had another day of racing and dropped 2:40 to stay behind them, taking the next two positions in the top 10. Bardet had plenty of breathing space on the rest with Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) a further four minutes back in ninth and Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) now 10th in 20:17.
How it unfolded
Wout van Aert kills the breakaway at the Col d’Aubisque (Image credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images) Stage 18 from Lourdes to the relentlessly steep climb to Hautacam started with only 140 riders left in the race. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious), Imanol Erviti (Movistar) and Chris Froome (Israel-Premier Tech) did not start after contracting COVID-19. It was another torrid day in the Pyrenees with three big climbs in the final big mountain event of the Tour de France 2022. All eyes were on Vingegaard and Pogačar, but the riders fighting to break into the top 10 wanted to go on the attack. The first few kilometers saw green jersey Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) attack first and try to drag some mates out of the peloton hanging tantalizingly just 10 seconds ahead. Powless decided to return to the company, so Van Aert eventually joined him. Another attack from team-mate Christophe Laporte drew a group whose gap narrowed and rolled as Van Aert tried to form an alliance to bridge it. He continued to set the pace and eventually moved into the 27 leaders with Nils Politt, Dylan Van Baarle, Bob Jungels, Dylan Teuns, Jakob Philipsen and Andreas Leknessund. Van Aert duly won the sprint over Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) and Politt, but disaster struck Nils Eekhoff (Team DSM) and Jack Bauer (BikeExchange-Jayco), who both fell under unexpected moves from racing motorcycles. As the leaders headed for the Col d’Aubisque, the breakaway broke up. Simon Geschke (Cofidis), the leader of the mountain classification, fought to bridge as Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) threatened his polka dot jersey, but failed. Tiesj Benoot, Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Daniel Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers), Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Carlos Verona (Movistar), Valentin Madouas (Movistar) and Thibaut Pinot (Jumbo-Visma) Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious ). ), Alexei.
