Rock climbers talk about the crux of a certain rock face or ascent. The crux is the biggest problem that a climber has to solve in order to make a successful attempt at getting to the top – if you’ve seen the movie Free Solo, about Alex Honnold’s climb of El Capitan in Yosemite Park, the crux is the ‘Boulder Problem’, a smooth section of vertical wall with a tiny hand hold, about 3mm wide, off which a climber must execute a move described by Honnold as a ‘karate kick’ to almost leap to the next foothold, and by the way, it’s almost 2,000 feet off the ground. Nothing else is as hard or as complicated as the Boulder Problem on El Capitan, so if a climber can master that particular sequence, he or she will likely get to the top.
The Pyrenees have been Tadej Pogačar’s Boulder Problem in the 2024 Tour de France. It’s not just the fact that seven of the race’s 15 hors and first-category climbs have featured in the 350 kilometres that the riders covered between Pau and Plateau de Beille on Saturday and Sunday. (This against six in the two big Alpine stages of the last week; also there are three Pyrenean hors-catégorie climbs against two in the final Alpine stages.) The Pyrenees have also loomed large over the 2024 Tour since Pogačar dropped Jonas Vingegaard on the Col du Galibier on stage four, and then through the time trial, gravel and Massif Central stages of the long loop around central France. The parcours of these stages, sprints aside, was held to be Tadej Pogačar territory, which is why the popular opinion after the Slovenian was not only pursued and caught by Vingegaard over the final punchy climbs on the Lioran stage, but outsprinted at the finish, was that the Dane was slowly getting the upper hand.
Conversely, the long, asphyxiating climbs of the Pyrenees have been held to be Jonas Vingegaard territory, and this is more than just a speculative vibe. Even when Pogačar last beat Vingegaard at the Tour, in 2021, he was unable to drop him in the Pyrenees except for a few seconds gained in the finishing efforts to the Col du Portet and Luz Ardiden. In 2022, Vingegaard put over a minute into Pogačar at Hautacam, and in 2023, the minute he gained over the Col de Marie Blanque on the stage to Laruns put him on the front foot, though Pogačar did strike back the next day at La Cambasque.
So when Pogačar went into the Pyrenees with a comparatively slim lead of 74 seconds over Vingegaard, there was a sense that he hadn’t banked enough time, and that with four massive mountain stages to come, two in the Pyrenees and two in the Alps, the pendulum would swing back to Vingegaard in his favoured territory. The writer Stendahl might have joked about the relative low altitude of the Pyrenees compared to the Alps in his book Travels in the South of France that he couldn’t find them, but the Pyrenees of the 2024 Tour were gnarly, and stages 13 and 14 possibly the hardest phase of the race.
However, what we sometimes forget is that sometimes the favoured territory of a rider is whatever is in front of him or her when they are the strongest rider in the race. The Pyrenees of 2024 are different from the Pyrenees of 2023, 2022 and 2021 not only in the order in which ASO has placed them, but also in the relative condition of the favourites of the race. What is clear from the last two days is that Tadej Pogačar is in better condition than Jonas Vingegaard, and the question now is, what else can the Dane do to beat him? On Saturday’s stage to Pla d’Adet, UAE Team Emirates rode tempo while Visma-Lease a Bike let them get on with it. Result: a stage win and time gain for Tadej Pogačar. On Sunday’s stage to Plateau de Beille, Visma rode tempo in an attempt to wear out Pogačar. Result: another stage win and an even bigger time gain for the Slovenian. There are no realistic tactical options left in the mountain stages for Visma – if they try to send riders up the road, UAE have the strength to contain them; if they don’t, the evidence of the Pyrenees is that whether Visma ride on the front foot or defensively, they lose. When the strongest rider is on the strongest team, it’s usually enough to win the yellow jersey.
It’s clear that Pogačar is physically stronger than Vingegaard. The Dane has arguably overperformed so far in this race, given that the injuries he sustained in his crash in Itzulia Basque Country in April must have significantly compromised his preparation. When he defended adequately in the Italian stages then matched Pogačar on the gravel stage to Troyes and the Massif Central stage to Le Lioran, it looked like the Tour was back in play, but it now looks like this was done on muscle memory and natural class. Without the deep and solid foundation of a consistent and lengthy build-up, these things will only get you so far. (This is something that Visma-Lease a Bike exploited in 2023, absorbing and weathering Pogačar’s constant goading, probing attacks through the first two weeks of the race and knowing, or at least highly suspecting, that his preparation, undermined by a broken wrist in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, would see him crack eventually.)
By the time Pogačar reached the summit of Plateau de Beille, over a minute clear of his rival and now holding a healthy three-minute lead in the GC, he looked visibly lighter and happier than he has in some time. Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike have more or less tried everything they have at their disposal in the first two weeks of the race, and have left barely a scratch on the Slovenian yellow jersey. There is still a week to go, and Pogačar has cracked at the end of a Grand Tour before; but he has also finished Grand Tours strongly – he has completed six so far, and in four of them he has won stage 20.
The Boulder Problem is not at the top of El Capitan. The climber who solves it still has a thousand vertical feet to ascend, and get through very tricky sections called ‘Teflon Corner’, ‘The Block’ and ‘The Round Table’. Tadej Pogačar has passed the crux of the 2024 Tour de France, and though there are tricky challenges to come – crosswinds in Provence, punchy stages in the Alpine foothills and then the High Alps and a time trial – it currently looks like he is on course to reach the summit.
