It was a change of the overall lead from Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and while many would have expected that at some point that switch would occur, that it happened in this manner was not expected.
It was a special sight during Stage 6 of the Tour de France as van Aert, resplendent in the yellow jersey, spent most of the day on the attack. Van Aert was very active in trying to force clear the early move in first 70 kilometres of the 220-kilometre stage before finally breaking the bunch’s willingness to stop him from going clear at 148 kilometres remaining.
Van Aert only had two riders left for company when the race settled into the traditional format of the peloton chasing down the move, albeit an accelerated version of the sometimes sedate mid-stage pace of a race. Van Aert was powering the move, and the peloton had a number of teams committing to the chase. With a tailwind prevailing for most of the stage, it was a rapid pace that far exceeded expectations.
Van Aert dropped his fellow breakaway companions not with attacks but with the sheer, inexorable pace of his tempo setting and with 30 kilometres it was just him and the peloton. Still it took more shed riders to catch the Belgian star, but as the hills started to bite, van Aert was beginning to grit his teeth and look more human.
The bunch caught van Aert just after the first of two sharp climbs to conclude the stage, dropping the exhausted rider almost immediately. The race for the stage win heated up on the next ascent as Alexis Vuillermoz (TotalEnergies) went clear with an attack on the steepest section. At that point, Pogačar stretched his legs as well to thin out the group and it was just the strong climbers that were able to follow.
Vuillermoz was swept up on the hill to the finish as UAE Team Emirates took up the pace-making for Pogačar, with Australian Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) the highest credentialled sprinter left in the group.
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) started the sprint, but once Pogačar began his own, it was clear that the two-time Tour de France champion was in a class of one, despite a battling performance from Matthews that saw him ride to second on the day.
Pogačar moved into the yellow jersey with the victory, holding it by four seconds over Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost) with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) third at 31 seconds in arrears. Van Aert was well down the standings by the end of the stage, down to 54th, over seven minutes behind.
“Today was hard from the start,” said Pogačar. “The first two hours, it was so crazy, the strongest guy went in the breakaway. A lot of the guys pulling in the peloton, all of my team as well. I was thinking he would come to the finish, but in the end the peloton was stronger.”
Pogačar was asked if he was happy to have the yellow jersey at such an early point of the race, with the UAE Team Emirates squad having to do a lot of work defending his yellow jersey in the coming days.
“Tomorrow we enter the climbs and it’s good to have the yellow jersey as I need to defend these days,” said Pogačar. “It’s good to have the yellow for the confidence and motivation of the teams. It’s something that you do not say no, and you ride every day with pride and a smile on the face.”
For van Aert, it was a case of the plan not quite coming off, and then committing to making the remnants of the strategy work for him anyway.
"Slightly different plan than the execution,” said van Aert. “It was a long stage, we expected to not have too much help to control it so decided to try to set me up in the breakaway, hopefully a bigger breakaway.
“It seemed like a lot of teams had this idea of being in the break so it was a long battle to get in. Unfortunately, when we finally opened up a gap there was only three riders, so I knew it was going to be really hard. But I had already used so much energy at that point so I decided to just give it a try and make the most of the jersey on my last day.”
Van Aert signed off for his time in yellow in style, but will move into the leader’s jersey of another category, with the the Belgian the leader of the sprint classification.
"It would've been nice to stay in yellow and I really liked it the last couple of days, but now I'm in green,” said van Aert.
The Tour de France continues with Stage 7, the first mountain stage of the race, finishing atop the Planche des Belles Filles. The race broadcast starts at 8.55pm AEST on the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker, with the SBS television coverage starting at 9.30pm AEST.
