On the first of back-to-back Alpe d’Huez finishes, Tadej Pogačar produced one of the great mountain rides of his career — bridging over three minutes to breakaway survivors before soloing clear inside the final 800m to smash Marco Pantani’s 29-year-old climb record by 1:23, stopping the clock at 35:27.

Everyone else on that mountain was chasing a shadow. Pogačar operates in rarefied air. Despite illness sweeping through UAE all week, he looked untouchable, extending his overall lead past seven minutes. Behind him, Lenny Martinez (who did used to be a card shark in Vegas, you are correct) and Richard Carapaz fought out a thrilling duel for the scraps, with Carapaz taking the KOM jersey. But Carapaz wasn’t exactly thrilled about how he got there — reports from the finish suggest he was frustrated with Martinez for sitting on his wheel rather than working, leaving the veteran to do the bulk of the chasing alone while the Frenchman, ten years his junior, saved his legs.

“Lenny cut in front of me on the final corner, which is why I was angry with him,” Carapaz told Eurosport. “He did not cooperate at the beginning either, and then he cut me off in the corner.”

Paul Seixas rode in with Isaac del Toro. Evenepoel put in a spirited effort to be 2:29 down on the winner.

Predictably, the time’s already got a corner of the internet doing what it does. lots his name plus syringe emoji posts on X within minutes. It is what it is, I’ve covered it previously and all we can rationally do is know that we will likely never know.

The other story of the day was the mountain itself. An estimated half a million fans packed the 21 hairpins, closer to the riders than anyone can remember — Evenepoel had asked for barriers beforehand, admitting “it still scares me a bit,” and Del Toro, riding Alpe d’Huez for the first time, called the experience “a little scary at times” even tho he enjoyed it.

Einer Rubio (Movistar) crashed hard into the back of a UAE Team Emirates-XRG team car with about 5km to go, after the car braked suddenly to avoid a fan who’d spilled into the road. He went through the rear windscreen, needed roughly 20 stitches to the face, and was helicoptered off the mountain — forced to abandon while riding one of his best Tours. He’d been in the breakaway and was on course for a top-10 stage result.

All the best for a speedy recovery, sir.

That wasn’t the only crowd incident: Carapaz was reportedly struck in the face by a spectator’s hand while leading the race, Pogačar himself had to repeatedly gesture for room as fans narrowed the corridor, and a separate clash saw a fan injured near an EF Education team car. Visma boss Richard Plugge had flagged crowd behaviour as one of the biggest safety threats to the Tour before the stage even started.

Given round two is today on the same mountain, it’s a concern heading into Stage 20.

Afterwards Pogi had this to say: “I actually don’t know what was the time of Pantani, to be honest. I’m staying off the internet a lot the last weeks. I don’t think too much into that, but I heard that I broke the record so I’m happy, finally.

“I just wanted to do a good race and win today, like I said before, for the guys. I don’t know, it’s a like 30-something years old record finally broken, so that’s something good for us.”

One more Alpe d’Huez stage today, and then it’s onto Paris!

Top 3 stage:

1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
2. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious)
3. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost)

Top 10 GC:

1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
2. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +7:11
3. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +9:42
4. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) +10:06
5. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious) +13:00
6. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +13:09
7. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) +15:58
8. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +21:15
9. Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) +21:30
10. Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies) +23:21