Tadej Pogacar set a record time on the Mont Ventoux in the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday. The wearer of the yellow jersey 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 to the top of 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 rider set a time of 55.51 minutes in the 2004 Critérium du Dauphiné. At the time, it was a time trial from the foot to the top of Mont Ventoux. On Tuesday, the ‘Bald Mountain’ was the final stage of a 171.5 kilometer stage, although the run-up to the hors catégorie climb was as good as flat.
“I don’t think we could have gone much harder than this today,” the 26-year-old Pogacar said after the race at his press conference. “Yes, we went really fast.”
The Slovenian gave credit 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 through the climb. They executed their ‘pacing plan’ perfectly.”
Mede door de hulp van zijn teamgenoten was de klimtijd van Vingegaard op de Mont Ventoux ruim vier minuten sneller dan in 2021. Dat was de vorige keer dat de berg in het Tour-parcours was opgenomen. Pogacar verloor toen veertig seconden op Vingegaard op de klim.
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 left on Pogacar at the finish.