Jonas Vingegaard won stage 18th on 21 July, Thursday. He made a clean sweep at the finishing line, leaving his opponents far behind while taking a solo win. Vingegaard now owns Tour de France 2022.
A mild crash disrupted the race for Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), but Vingegaard waited on him like a true gentleman, so that both of them can continue to compete for the victory.
Sepp Kuss and Tiesj Benoot worked together to bring Vingegaard to the climb at Hautacam, where he joined Van Aert to continue the fight. Pogacar, Aert and Vingegaard engaged in a massive fight untill Vingegard made a breakaway and sprinted off to victory, leaving his rival, Pogacar, behind to bite the dust.
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Nevertheless, Pogačar never gave up and continued to fight. His resilience ended up in landing him the second position at the stage, with Van Aert following in third.
Van Aert added more points to his classification, As he was actively playing the role of climber and sprinter. We might as well call him the rouleur because he was doing it all.
Vingegaard was quite happy with his achievement, as he said:
It’s incredible,This morning I said to my girlfriend and daughter I wanted to win for them and I did. I’m really really happy and proud I won for them. This one is really for my two girls at home
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He continued to thank his teammates for all the hard work they put in to make his win possible:
I have to thank all my teammates, they’re incredible. You see Wout van Aert dropping Tadej Pogacar in the end, Sepp Kuss was incredible, everyone was incredible, Tiesj [Benoot], Christophe [Laporte], Nathan [van Hooydonck] – they were all incredible. Thanks so much to my teammates, I could never done this without them
As for the remaining top 10, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) finished fourth, maintaining his third position in the GC. Vingegaard is leading him with whole 8 minutes.
David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) is in the fourth position in GC, leaving behind Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic), but he is 11:05 minutes behind the leading man.
Romain Bardet (Team DSM) had another bad day as he lost 2:40 minutes, allowing Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) to gain over him.
Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) is in the ninth place, four minutes behind Bardet, while Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers), at 20:17 is in the 10th place.
Results
| POS | RIDER | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonas Vingegaard | Jumbo-Visma | 03:59:50 |
| 2 | Tadej Pogacar | UAE Team Emirates | 03:59:50 |
| 3 | Wout van Aert | Jumbo-Visma | + 02:10 |
| 4 | Geraint Thomas | INEOS Grenadiers | + 02:54 |
| 5 | David Gaudu | Groupama-FDJ | + 02:58 |
| 6 | Alexey Lutsenko | Astana Qazaqstan Team | + 03:09 |
| 7 | Daniel Martinez | INEOS Grenadiers | + 03:09 |
| 8 | Sepp Kuss | Jumbo-Visma | + 03:27 |
| 9 | Aleksandr Vlasov | BORA-hansgrohe | + 04:04 |
| 10 | Thibaut Pinot | Groupama-FDJ | + 04:09 |
Also Read: Jonas Vingegaard- The True Champion
Featured Image Via YouTube/ Eurosport France
