Pogacar’s display on Bastille Day was poetry, ballet, an artist’s brush streaking the canvas of the Pertus, it was Bushido.
He he attained Zen.
He is Bodhisattva on a Bike.
He is a force of nature, unleashed upon the earth.
Pogačar attacked on the Col de Pertus with 15km to go, caught lone leader Richard Carapaz, and simply rode straight past him to solo victory — his third stage win of this Tour. Evenepoel clawed his way back from difficulty to take second in a small chase group, Seixas third. Del Toro got dropped and handed the white jersey to his own teammate, Ayuso, on the way down.
Pogačar, asked about the Bastille Day crowd’s decidedly mixed reception: “Thanks to all the fans that came today to the road, it was an amazing atmosphere, even though there was some booing. To all the guys that were booing — they give us more power.”
Then, deadpan: “I have haters now and haters gonna hate. It’s always like this.”
Booing a rider for being too good at bike racing is one of the more baffling traditions in this sport, and le Tour, specifically, has previous. In 1975, a spectator on the Puy de Dôme didn’t settle for just jeering Eddy Merckx — he stepped out of the crowd and punched him in the kidney, mid-climb, while Merckx was in yellow and closing in on a sixth Tour win that would’ve broken his tie with Anquetil.
Merckx never wore yellow again after that stage. He always maintained the punch cost him the Tour. Nobody has ever been able to prove him wrong.
Relative to that, a bit of whistling on a Cantal hillside is practically a standing ovation. Nobody, thankfully, is trying to sucker punch Pogačar half way up a col – not yet anyway.
Yet booing in reaction to the dominance of the Slovenian at this year’s Tour displays an ignorance of that is astonishing.
What we’re watching is a level of control that hasn’t we haven’t seen since Merckx. That he is in such incredible shape, attacking with such intelligence, mastering not only the terrain and his rivals but also his own self – we may not see the likes of this for another 50 years.
What you have to admire about this kid, even of you think he makes racing dull, is the joy he takes in winning. None of that too cool for school crap, nope, he loves to smash his rivals, he lives to win. He’s also deeply aware of cycling history and respectful of it.
“I wanted to do something special on Bastille Day and to honour that and to honour the jersey.”
‘Nuff said.
Call it boring if you like if you’re like.
History will call it genius — a genius on a bicycle, doing things none of us should take for granted.
Top 3 stage:
- Pogačar
- Evenepoel, +32″
- Seixas, +34″
Top 3 GC:
- Pogačar
- Vingegaard, +3:36
- Evenepoel, +4:06
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