Remco Evenepoel wins Stage 5 TT, Pogacar claims Yellow at Tour de France
Remco Evenepoel powered to a dominant Stage 5 time trial win at the Tour de France, clocking 36'42" on a flat 33km course. However, Tadej Pogacar finished just 16 seconds behind to seize the yellow jersey from Mathieu van der Poel.
HYDERABAD: Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) tamed a headwind to win a dramatic Stage 5 individual time trial at the Tour de France – but his bid for the yellow jersey failed as Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took over at the top of the general classification.
Evenepoel clocked 36’42” over the 33km flat course to unseat long-time hotseat leader Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike), but Pogacar finished just 16 seconds down on him to steal yellow from Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
A surprising but impressive fifth place from Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea B&B Hotels) was enough to bounce him up to the podium and raise French hopes, as two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) leaked over a minute.
The 33km, pan-flat course may have been designed with Evenepoel in mind. The out-and-back map was made of multiple fast turns and long straights on which to build power and maintain it.
The world champion clearly thought so, setting stratospheric expectations in suggesting the night before that he might go fast enough to move into yellow. That would mean gaining more than 59 seconds on Pogacar and Van der Poel.
Luke Plapp (Jayco-Alula) went out hard, setting what would hold up as the fastest first sector all day, but it meant he did not have much left at the end.
The Australian, who has taken a few high-profile TT tumbles in recent years, took the final few kilometres with caution, and in so doing, shipped sufficient time to lose the lead to Ivan Romeo (Movistar), who risked it all for a fast time.
As good a time as the Spaniard set, it was not fast enough to keep European champion Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) out of the hot seat. The Italian was 30 seconds quicker than Romeo at the finish for a benchmark time of 37’15.
For most of the next three hours, French TT champion Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R) was the only rider to give Affini cause for concern, but lost out on the line by two seconds.
For the rest of the afternoon, Affini saw riders fall short, some by a lot, others by more, but knew he couldn’t get too comfortable while he waited for the final four.
Evenepoel, in ninth place at the start of the day, was the ninth-from-last rider down the ramp. It appeared briefly as if the conditions might have gone against him, with the wind having changed, and for the first three splits, he was down on the fastest time.
As he came into the home straight with the clock still in green, it was clear he had paced the ride to perfection, as he beat Affini at the finish by 33 seconds.
Pogacar was briefly in touch with Evenepoel’s time but dropped a dozen or so seconds over the latter stages of the course. The Slovenian’s ride was nonetheless a marked improvement on his Dauphine performance, in which he dropped around a minute over a much shorter distance. He was also likely more concerned with how he fared against Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
