When the Tour de France returns to the legendary Puy de Dôme today after 35 years, the stage is set for the next clash between defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and two-time champion Tadej Pogacar.
The climb up the volcano is 13.3 kilometres long with an average gradient of 7.7 per cent. The last four kilometres are particularly tough, with a gradient of up to 18 per cent. "This is a special stage. It's going to be super, super tough," said Pogacar.
The starting situation: Vingegaard won the first duel in the Pyrenees in Laruns, Pogacar returned the favour a day later in Cauterets-Cambasque. The Dane has a wafer-thin lead of 25 seconds in the overall classification. "I'd rather be 25 seconds ahead than behind," says Vingegaard, who doesn't want to overemphasise his rival's surprising impact on the final mountain stage. In the run-up to the Tour, it was expected that Pogacar could well be ahead at the end of the first week of the Tour.
The other rivals: Vingegaard and Pogacar are in a league of their own. For the rest, it's all about third place overall. Australian Jai Hindley from the German Bora-hansgrohe team, who was also allowed to wear the yellow jersey for one day, is in third place. "If it was like this in Paris, we'd take it. That's fine for us," says team boss Ralph Denk. For former Tour fourth-placed Emanuel Buchmann, however, this also means that he will have to continue working for Hindley and put his own ambitions on the back burner.
The history: In 1964, five-time Tour champion Jacques Anquetil and eternal runner-up Raymond Poulidor fought a memorable elbow duel on the Puy de Dôme. The now deceased Poulidor, grandfather of Mathieu van der Poel, shook off his rival and ultimately missed out on the yellow jersey by 14 seconds. He was never to receive the coveted maillot jaune.
Legend Eddy Merckx always chased victory at the legendary mountain finish in vain. Incidentally, the German Rolf Gölz took second place in the last Tour detour up the Puy de Dôme, which is otherwise no longer accessible to cars and cyclists. It was the Dane Johnny Weltz who cheered.
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