Back-to-Back Wins on Alpe d’Huez? Pogačar Sizing up Even More History Saturday

Could Tadej Pogačar go on a winning spree like the 2024 Tour de France and take Saturday’s final mountain stage and, whisper it, maybe even Sunday’s concluder in Paris?

Pogačar wasn’t ruling the former out after his record-breaking stage win atop Alpe d’Huez on Friday.

Becoming the first-ever rider to take back-to-back stage wins atop the Alpe is a huge carrot to aim for Saturday. The attraction of that is further ramped up by the fact it is the hardest stage of the race.

“Tomorrow is the queen stage of the Tour,” the Tour race leader said, looking ahead to what remains. “Then I hope Paris will be a nice day and super shiny. Tomorrow is the hardest day of the Tour.”

Race organisers ASO have laid on a sufferfest for tiring riders, with a muscle-busting 5450 vertical meters awaiting the peloton Saturday.

Things are tough from the off, with the 24km long, 2067 meters high hors categorie Col de la Croix de Fer starting less than 10km after the drop of the flag. Once at the summit, the riders will have a long descent to the day’s intermediate sprint, when will embark on the category one Col du Télégraphe and the hors categorie Col du Galibier.

At a staggering 2,642 meters this is the highest point of this year’s Tour, with the rarefied atmosphere adding to the ordeal the riders will face.

If that’s not difficult enough, there is one more HC climb on the menu. The Col de Sarenne has featured once before in the Tour, as a descent in between back to back ascents of Alpe d’Huez on stage 18 in 2013.

This time around the peloton heads upwards, battling over 12.8kms averaging over seven percent in gradient. The summit is 14km from the finish line at Alpe d’Huez, with undulating terrain following before a short ramp up to the finish line.

It looks tailor-made for a strong climber and, if Pogačar is motivated and his team is strong enough, for potential back-to-back wins.

Asked if he was aiming to do exactly that, he was vague, maybe deliberately so.

“Now we won and tomorrow we see,” he replied. “We go our own rhythm, our own plan tomorrow. We don’t care about anything else, we just do like we do every day. We stick as a team together and do our best and see what happens.”

Del Toro a priority

Should Pogačar go on to capture Saturday’s stage, it would be a first in the history of the Tour. Alpe d’Huez featured on two consecutive days just once before, back in 1979.

On that occasion Joaquim Agostino and Joop Zoetemelk were the winners.

Doubling up at Alpe d’Huez would be a huge feat, and is exactly the kind of target that may interest the Tour race leader.

It’s not a given, though. Firstly his team has been hit by illness this week. UAE Emirates-XRG is a man down with Brandon McNulty out of the race.

And while Adam Yates showed real signs of recovery on Friday, going in the day’s break and then drifting back to give Pogačar some important help on Alpe d’Huez, Tim Wellens is still very much under the weather.

He was dropped early on Friday and finished over half an hour back.

Going for the stage win Saturday will depend on the UAE team being strong enough to control the time gained by any breakaways. The bid to ensure Isaac del Toro remains third overall may also complicate things.

“Today was maybe my day to take an opportunity to win,” Pogačar said. “And tomorrow we make sure that Isaac fights for the this beautiful white jersey and podium.”

That doesn’t rule out a bid to go for the stage, but the team would be juggling the podium/best young rider category for Del Toro as well.

Montmartre awaits

And what about Sunday? Last year Pogačar tried his utmost to win the final stage, a race normally limited to the sprinters but which was made much more selective by three ascents of the tough Montmartre climb.

He floored it on the final time up but Wout van Aert was the strongest, blasting clear and racing on to a stunning solo victory.

That will have frustrated Pogačar, and pulling off the win this time around may be on his mind.

It seems an impossible ask to chase victory Friday, Saturday and Sunday but he’s done it once before. At the 2024 Tour he took the two final road stages and then won the concluding time trial in Nice.

It’s difficult, but not impossible, to finish with the same kind of flourish again.

Either way, though, the five stage wins he has racked up thus far underline his superiority, as does his growing GC lead.