Tadej Pogacar wins the 2020 Tour de France
Tadej Pogacar overhauled Primoz Roglic on the climb to La Planche-des-Belles-Filles as Richie Porte moved into third place
Huge drama at the Tour de France, scenes not seen since 1989, Tadej Pogacar beat Primoz Roglic by 1m 56s in the 36 km Individual Time Trial to take the Yellow Jersey.
A stunned Roglic was consoled by teammate Tom Dumoulin who was second fastest in the time trial. Roglic went over to fellow Slovienian Pogacar and hugged and congratulated him.
Richie Porte also put in the ride of his life to overhaul Lopez and to take 3rd place overall. Lopez dopped from 3rd to 6th overall.
Tadej Pogacar also won the young rider's White Jersey and the King of the Mountains classification Polka Dot jersey.
Tadej Pogacar said to the press afterwards, "I think I’m dreaming. I don’t know what to say. It’s unbelievable. My dream was just to be on the Tour de France, now the dream is true. I’m here and now there’s only the last stage. This is unbelievable. I don’t know when I will get this.
"I’m really proud of the team. They did such a big effort. To get the yellow jersey on the final day is what we dreamed from the start. We achieved that and it's amazing. It was not just me, it was all the team.
"We did a reconnaissance and I knew every corner, every pothole in the road, I knew when to accelerate and that's congrats to all the team. I pushed to the end and I made it. I was listening to my radio on the flat part but then on the climb, I didn’t hear anything from the radio because the fans were too loud. I didn’t get any time gaps, I just went deep. I knew the climb well and so went full gas from the bottom to the top."
A stunned Primoz Roglic said afterwards, "I just obviously didn’t push enough. It was like that. Was just more and more without the power that I needed. I was giving everything to the end. We will see how I deal with this. Still I can be happy with the result and the racing we showed here, so let’s take the positives."
An emotional Richie Porte, who finished 3rd Tour de France podium said to the media, "I came here with the blessing of my wife. I missed the birth of my second child, so to come away with a podium is incredible. Now I’ll have that photo on the wall when I retire on the Champs, with two other massive champions, so I’m absolutely humbled. It’s not skunk in yet. It’s been a funny old race for me over the years, I’ve had so many disasters and I almost had a couple here. The team has been incredible, it’s been a great three weeks. I used to stay up watching the Tour watching Stuart O’Grady, Brad McGee and Baden Cooke. These guys are my heroes and Cadel the best of them all. It’s been so many years of hard toil. I kind of flew under the radar here a bit. But I’m just so happy. If I can do it, anyone can do it. When my son Luca was born, I won the Tour de Suisse, so to come and be third here... It’s probably my last Tour I get to do with a GC leadership role, so it feels so special."
Pogacar is the sixth rider to snatch yellow in a penultimate-day time trial, after Cadel Evans from Andy Schleck in 2011, Floyd Landis from Oscar Pereiro in 2006 (although that jersey soon had to be handed back), Greg Lemond from Claudio Chiappucci in 1990, Stephen Roche from Pedro Delgado in 1987, and Charly Gaul from Vito Favero in 1958.
We can extend the list times when there has been a time trial on the very last day: Greg Lemond from Laurent Fignon in 1989, and Jan Janssen from Herman Van Springel in 1968.
Tom Dumoulin added, "What can I say? It happened. I don’t know how Pogacar climbed a minute faster than I did,” Tom Dumoulin said. “We hadn’t taken this into account, this is quite a blow. The Tour win slips from our hands. I rode well again, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Pogacar was too strong today. He was at a completely different level than we were. Primoz felt good, he knew he had to put down a good time trial. He hasn’t ridden his best, but it certainly wasn’t bad either. We expected it to be enough.”
“It hurt my eyes how Primož got more and more into difficulty,” Van Aert said. “It didn’t look as smooth as usual, he missed that cadence. And before the start, it all looked so good. But it is a combination of Pogacar that rode really fantastic while Primož did not reach his normal level that ensures this result. We went all out every day. We gave everything and did everything perfectly. We were ready to celebrate, so to speak.”
VIDEO: 2020 Tour de France Stage 20 Highlights
2020 Tour de France Stage 20 Top 10
1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 00:55:55
2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Jumbo-Visma 00:01:21
3 Richie Porte (Aus) Trek-Segafredo 00:01:21
4 Wout van Aert (Bel) Team Jumbo-Visma 00:01:31
5 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 00:01:56
6 Rémi Cavagna (Fra) Deceuninck-Quickstep 00:01:59
7 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain McLaren 00:02:29
8 David De la Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) UAE Team Emirates 00:02:40
9 Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team 00:02:45
10 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Pro Cycling 00:02:54
2020 Tour de France GC after Stage 20 Top 10
1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 84:26:33
2 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 00:00:59
3 Richie Porte (Aus) Trek-Segafredo 00:03:30
4 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Bahrain McLaren 00:05:58
5 Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team 00:06:07
6 Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Col) Astana Pro Team 00:06:47
7 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Jumbo-Visma 00:07:48
8 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Pro Cycling 00:08:02
9 Adam Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott 00:09:25
10 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Bahrain McLaren 00:14:0