Review Tour de France 2023: Images, emotions and the duel of the top stars

Tour de France 2023 - The duel

The captain radioed SOS. In extreme distress. "I've dropped out, I'm dead," said Tadej Pogacar into the microphone of the team radio when he realised that he had lost the duel against his rival Jonas Vingegaard on the 17th stage. On the Col de la Loze, the longest and toughest mountain of this Tour de France, which lived up to its reputation as the Tour's executioner with ramps of up to 20 per cent gradients beyond the 2000 metre mark. If you have a bad day on this climb, you won't lose seconds, but minutes - as the peloton had said beforehand.

The 24-year-old Slovenian experienced the worst drop in performance of his career around 14 kilometres before the finish of the queen stage. While the Dane in the yellow jersey escaped in the serpentines further up, as if the crisis of his rival would give him even more legs. Jonas Vingegaard put his second Tour victory in a row on an almost rock-solid foundation over the few kilometres to the finish at the airport in Courchevel and took almost six minutes off his weakening rival.

"These two are so much better than the rest"

Until then, the two had clung to each other like burrs for a fortnight - and if one of them managed to break away from the other, he struck back. First, last year's winner Vingegaard left his Slovenian counterpart without a chance on the Col de Marie-Blanque in the Pyrenees - and for 24 hours the Tour seemed to be decided early on. But Pogacar nibbled away some of the gap to the leader the very next day with his stage win at the mountain arrival in Cauterets. After the sixth stage, the rest of the podium contenders already seemed to be out of contention.

"The two of them are so much better than the rest," said Wout van Aert, eyewitness to the rivalry and noble helper in Vingegaard's Jumbo-Visma team. And the pursuer continued to chip away at the lead of the man in yellow stage after stage; a few seconds here with a powerful attack on the Puy de Dome, a few seconds there with a mountain sprint on the Grand Colombier. Then the stalemate in the Alps. Before the second rest day, a measly ten seconds separated the two best riders.

"That's modern cycling," remarked Bora team boss Ralph Denk in view of the course of the race, "when Grand Tours are decided by bonus seconds." Like a squirrel, "Pogi" tried to collect every bonus and exploit every moment of inattention from his opponent. 51 seconds to 29 seconds - that was the score for the bonuses in Paris. Without Pogacar's collapse, Denk could well have been right with his prediction. But things turned out differently.

Cool planning versus intuition

The peloton groaned under the dominance of the two - the overall standard at this Tour was higher than last time, according to many racers. Lifted by the two super-strong teams Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates, who day after day almost always sucked all the breakaways back into the peloton like giant hoovers.

The escorts of the two top stars found arguments almost every day for the frenzy they instigated, which deprived the others of almost every prospect of success: testing their opponents from start to finish, looking for weaknesses, aiming for a possible stage win for the team, preparing all-rounder Wout van Aert for a sprint - or simply chasing bonus seconds, which are only available at the very front.

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The mercilessness may also have had something to do with the fact that the dominators did not want to lose control again - like Jumbo-Visma on the second day when Frenchman Victor Lafay won, leaving behind an angry van Aert who had lost his chance. Or like on stage 5, when Team Bora-Hansgrohe managed to manoeuvre Jai Hindley into a breakaway group and the Australian took the stage win and the yellow jersey.

Tour de France 2023: Vingegaard one with the time trial machine

At least the balance of power was back in favour the next day and Hindley had already been left behind on the Tourmalet long before the finish. It became increasingly clear that only two riders were still in contention for the triumph in Paris. The 26-year-old winner of last year's Tourmalet made his first impact in the individual time trial on stage 16, for which his toughest opponent had actually been the favourite. However, while Pogacar looked somehow empty and exhausted, with a lame bike change for the climb that seemed like an early capitulation, Vingegaard shone.

The Dane seemed to have become one with his time trial machine - on which he pulled out a lead of 1:38 minutes in just over half an hour. "Legendary. Show the world that you're the best," his sporting director Grischa Niermann radioed to the man in yellow. "It was the best time trial ever," said former time trial world champion Tom Dumoulin as an expert for Dutch television.

Good pacing, fast material and the human machine Vingegaard, who, according to calculations by TOUR test engineer Robert Kühnen, set standards in terms of aerodynamics with a cdA value of 0.18. Cool planning and perfect preparation versus intuition, aggression and a 'now first' mentality - that was the motto of this Grande Boucle.

In the end, the perfectionist won - presumably also because his opponent was not in top form after several weeks of racing and training following a scaphoid fracture at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. No other cyclist could have seriously fought for the Tour de France victory with this preparation, said the Slovenian's coach, cancer researcher Inigo San Millan.

Tour de France 2023 - A mature winner

While Jonas Vingegaard still seemed hyper-nervous and rushed in his actions in his debut last year, he seemed to be at peace with himself as the leader of the yellow and black star ensemble in this Tour of France, acted attentively in the race, appeared mature overall and improved in some disciplines - faster in the sprints, to which the rascal from Slovenia repeatedly challenged him, and in the time trial.

Naturally, the superior performance of the two top cyclists raised doubts. Vingegaard emphasised that he didn't eat anything that he wouldn't give to his young daughter Frida as a justification. Even the controversial metabolic wonder drug ketones, presumably one of the secret recipes for the success of the Jumbo squad, was rejected by the Dane, claimed his team boss Richard Plugge.

His rival had no complaints, Pogacar had to admit after three weeks of battling it out: "Jonas was phenomenal. He had two really good days on which I couldn't keep up." The winner returned the compliments in kind: "Rivalries are good for cycling. It was incredibly hard to break him down," emphasised the Tour winner at the final press conference. "I'll be back for the next fight with Jonas and Jumbo," said the loser. The duel should only be decided for this one time.