van Aert wins the 20th stage, Vingegaard promised victory

The green jersey in front of the yellow jersey: Belgian Wout van Aert won the Rocamadour time trial, the twentieth and penultimate stage of the Tour de France, the final victory of which is promised to his Danish teammate Jonas Vingegaard.

In the Lot, the euphoria continued for the Jumbo team, which took the first two places in the stage. Vingegaard, second 19 seconds behind the winner of the day, consolidated his yellow jersey, bringing his advantage over the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar to more than three and a half minutes.

The Dane, who will be the second from his country to appear on the list of winners of the race, 26 years after the controversial Bjarne Riis, nevertheless came close to disaster. He honored his status as leader to take the lead at the first two intermediate points (km 22) in this 40.7 kilometer time trial, to the point of taking excessive risks.

Launched at high speed on the last descent, he narrowly escaped falling out of the bend, near the rock, 2.5 kilometers from the finish. He finally slowed down in the last few hundred meters and was able to let himself go with emotion, the line crossed, with his companion in tears, and his little girl.

– “I scared myself” –

“It’s true that I scared myself, I didn’t feel like I was really taking any big risks, but in this slightly sloping turn, I didn’t take the right trajectory”, explained the carrier. yellow jersey.

“It was just, I got really close. Afterwards I said to myself: ‘Let’s calm down.’ same,” added Vingegaard, who thanked his team.

“We are very close to each other, it’s something that we cultivate”, he underlined about the sixth stage victory of the Jumbo formation, the third personal for van Aert. “I’m very happy for Wout who won the stage, he’s like a brother.”

The 25-year-old Dane only has 115 kilometers to go on Sunday to win this 109th edition of the Grande Boucle, which started in Copenhagen for the first time. A year after revealing himself by taking second place behind Pogacar, triumphing for the second time.

– Ninth stage for van Aert –

For the stage victory, the time trial turned into a three-way match between van Aert, Vingegaard and Geraint Thomas, the third in the classification. The Welshman only weakened at the end of the course, in the last two climbs towards the tourist site which is frequented by pilgrims to Compostela.

Thomas, fourth in the stage at 32 seconds, was finally beaten by five seconds by Pogacar, the defending champion, who wears the white jersey of the best young person in this Tour. He consolidates his position on the podium, the third of his career after his victory in 2018 and his second place the following year.

At 27, van Aert signed his ninth success in the Tour and joined Pogacar in this table.

Road captain of the Jumbo team, the Belgian also accumulated second places in this edition (four times). In Copenhagen, at the opening of the Tour, he was deprived of the yellow jersey, for five seconds, by his compatriot Yves Lampaert.

The Rocamadour time trial slightly changed the hierarchy in the top ten. Colombian Nairo Quintana lost his fifth place to Russian Aleksandr Vlasov. As for Romain Bardet, he took advantage of the limits in the exercise of the South African Louis Meintjes (passed from sixth to eighth place) to finally rank seventh and second Frenchman after David Gaudu (fourth).

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