Tadej Pogacar leads the Tour by 3min 36sec. Half of the last ten such leaders lost.
Tadej Pogacar reached the first rest day of the Tour de France in the yellow jersey, then extended his lead with a solo win at Le Lioran on 14 July.
What happened
Tadej Pogacar attacked alone to win stage 10 into Le Lioran on Bastille Day, extending his overall lead as Jonas Vingegaard lost contact in the final metres.
Jonas Vingegaard wore the yellow jersey, which the race leader wears, after the opening time trial in Barcelona on . Pogacar took it from him on stage 3, when he dropped Vingegaard on the final steep slopes to Les Angles and won the stage.
The hardest days come on 24 and . For the first time in any Grand Tour, two stages in a row finish on Alpe d’Huez. The first is a short 128km stage from Gap. The second is the hardest stage of the race, 171km with 5,600m of climbing over the Croix de Fer, Telegraphe, Galibier and Col de Sarenne.
Before that, Wednesday’s flat stage from Vichy to Nevers is one for the sprinters. After the Alps the race ends in Paris on , with three climbs of Montmartre.
The Pattern
Half of the last ten first-rest-day leaders won the Tour. Leading at that point sounds decisive, and in recent years it has been closer to a coin toss. Those who lost the lead include Pogacar himself. Below are six of those Tours. The rest of the record adds Chris Froome’s wins in 2016 and 2017 and Pogacar’s win in 2021.
Show the other 4 cases
The Read
History leans towards Pogacar. He has won every mountain test so far and gained time on Vingegaard at Les Angles and Le Lioran. His lead of 3min 36sec is bigger than the one he had at the first rest day in either of his last two winning Tours. Among real favourites who led at this point, rather than riders who got ahead in a breakaway, five of seven went on to win.
The full record is only half, and Pogacar has lost this lead himself: in 2022 he cracked on the Col du Granon. This route is built for a late attack. No Tour has put Alpe d’Huez on two days in a row before, and the 5,600m stage comes less than 48 hours before Paris. A lead like this one has been lost on a single climb before, against this same rival.
The two Alpe d’Huez stages on 24 and are where the question will be answered.
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