Tadej Pogačar has been delivering outstanding performances, which seem as normality now as they are exceptional, more often than not. He has defeated other contenders and tried to outdo as many praises as can be expected of him as things stands in this wonderful career he has. Nevertheless, out of all the impressive performances that he made in his entire cycling career, the stage 15 at Plateau de Beille will always remain mark out as a classic.

Pogačar has spent a large portion of his career fighting two wars: first, one with his competitors on the male athletic frontier, and second, in the collective memory with popular postwar male film stars and other legendary founders of the American media culture. As a rider who was anointed worthy to inherit Eddy Merckx’s legend for the better part of four years, this is what one has had to put up with.

Tadej increased the lead to the incumbent Jonas Vingegaard on Sunday by more than 3 minutes having moved in front of the leader 1:08. At the same time, he shaved two minutes and fifteen seconds off Marco Pantani’s record set in 1998 on Plateau de Beille, thus achieving a time that many experts believed could not be beaten—3:40.

Such records were considered safe, or at least extremely difficult to alter, for many years following that period of splurge. However, while in the long gone years, such conviction was the key to success, in the high-stakes cycling of the 2020s, it has been slowly fading. Despite this, no one thought Pogačar could dismantle it as he did, offering a surreal narrative similar to Bob Beamon’s legendary leap in the Mexico City Olympic games.

“But today Visma set a super, super strong pace from the beginning and then Jonas did most of the work until my attack. Then I pushed my limit. I’m just super happy to take the win and I’m not thinking about the Strava segment.” Following the event, Pogačar stated in the press,  “I don’t know how Pantani rode back in the day, that’s almost now 30 years ago.”

Pogačar is on the process of rewriting cycling history. After Pantani completed the Giro-Tour double in 1998, no rider has since done the same but, with this excellent display at the Giro, Janez has gone a long way toward emulating such a feat.

Pogačar triumphed in six stages of the Giro d’Italia by a margin of over 10 minutes in the following May, conquering the country effortlessly. But enemies argued that he did not have decent worthy opponents with whom he could compete at such levels. This Tour de France tells a different story. He now finds himself against the strongest and most competitive part of the year that features Jonas Vingegaard, his main competitor. The previous three Tours have been very competitive and this just makes his endeavours all the more more interesting.

Saturday at Pla d’Adet saw Pogačar make his move and open up a 40-second gap on Vingegaard. On stage 15, which is expected to test endurance and acceleration, the Dane did not take the challenge as a signal to outperform by responding with solid performance.

Approaching the Tarascon-sur-Ariège and beginning the tough journey of 16km to arrive at the finish line, Matteo Jorgenson took over Visma-Lease a Bike in setting the hard pace for the yellow-jersey group.

Vingegaard delivered the attack that everyone was anticipating, and Pogačar stayed right on his stem throughout 5km to the finish. He maintained keen interest to monitor his competitor’s every move during this period. At 180 of the kilometers, Pogačar noticed that Vingegaard was becoming tired and that it was time for action. undefined Grabbing the reigns, he urged the stallion into a gallop and bypassed the Dane swiftly.

“He set a super good pace, but when he finally attacked again – the final attack from him, just before my attack – I saw that maybe I could do some difference from him if I tried,” Pogačar said. “It was really hard to break him and to make the bigger gap. I was going all-out to the finish line.”

“I was going all-out to the finish line,” Pogačar said. “I could not imagine for a better weekend. Today I was counting down the final kilometres, the final minutes because it was so hard. But it was worth it in the end, I was super happy.”

Even as it has happened so many times in the course of their rivalry, Vingegaard was able to distance Pogačar by only 20 meters. Nonetheless, the lead continued to increase in the course of the climb as the Slovenian champion was clocking about 10 seconds to every kilometer of the steep segments. Again like Remco Evenepoel, who came third that day at 2:51, Vingegaard eclipsed Pantani’s previous record on the climb. But the problem was that Pogačar had set a completely new record of performance to which no one was capable of aspiring before.

Pogačar is now 3:09 ahead of Vingegaard in the GC and 5:19 ahead of Evenepoel, while more than ten minutes ahead of the rest of the runners. In hindsight, the issues which the yellow jersey faced on Col de Pertus in stage 11 seem to have been more of an obstacle than anything that dramatically shifted the course of the race. All one can see now is another Pogačar victory in Nice on Sunday despite the power that Vingegaard has shown and his ability to withstand the miseries of the last week.

“The Tour finishes when you arrive normally on Champs-Élysées but this year it’s Nice,” Pogačar smiled. “When we arrive on the main street of Nice, then it’s finished. We can speak about the finish then, not before. We will stay focused until that moment.”

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