Tadej Pogacar set a record time on Mont Ventoux in the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday. The yellow jersey wearer was faster on the iconic mountain than Iban Mayo, although he acknowledged that this was mainly due to Visma-Lease a Bike.
Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard flew upwards on Mont Ventoux. Pogacar took 54 minutes and 41 seconds to complete the 21.5-kilometer climb from the village of Bedoin. Vingegaard was two seconds slower than his rival.
This made them both much faster than Mayo’s 21-year-old record. The Basque set a time of 55.51 minutes in the Critérium du Dauphiné of 2004. It was then a time trial from the foot to the top of Mont Ventoux. On Tuesday, the ‘Bald Mountain’ was the final piece of a 171.5-kilometer stage, although the approach to the climb of the hors catégorie was virtually flat.
“I don’t think we could have gone much harder than this today,” said the 26-year-old Pogacar at his press conference after the stage. “Yes, we went really fast.”
The Slovenian gave the credits for this to Visma-Lease a Bike. Vingegaard or one of his teammates set the pace for Pogacar for almost the entire climb. “Jonas and his team did very well. Tiesj Benoot and Victor Campenaerts were in the leading group and were able to ride at the front for Jonas halfway up the climb. They executed their ‘pacing plan’ perfectly.”
Partly due to the help of his teammates, Vingegaard’s climbing time on Mont Ventoux was more than four minutes faster than in 2021. That was the last time the mountain was included in the Tour route. Pogacar then lost forty seconds to Vingegaard on the climb.
Pogacar did not cross the finish line first on Tuesday. He and Vingegaard started the Mont Ventoux with a deficit of about six minutes on a leading group. Escapee Valentin Paret-Peintre took the victory. The Frenchman had 43 seconds over Pogacar at the finish line.