Stage 18: Lourdes to Hautacam (mountains)

Video capture of Pogacar and Vingegaard shaking hands on the road — La plus belle image du Tour de France 2022 : Vingegaard attend Pogacar après sa chute (Eurosport France)

Jonas Vingegaard winning stage 18 — Hand of friendship raised in triumph (ASO / Pauline Ballet)

Tadej Pogacar may have considered praying for a miracle at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, or at least of filling his bidons from the holy spring, for nothing short of a miracle seemed likely to shift the yellow jersey from his back wheel. However it was a moment of fellowship & sporting respect that was most memorable as Jonas Vingegaard sat up to wait for his rival after he’d crashed on the gravel. Classy.

The miracle was in the hands of the brilliant WVA in green who instead rode the white jersey off Vingegaard’s wheel and launched his leader to a definitive mountain top stage win. Was this the “Queen” stage or had it been stage 11? The cycling press seemed undecided, but in both cases the toughest profiles were won by Vingegaard and were where he twice put time into the defending champion. A worthy winner, this time in yellow.

Team of the Day

What – apart from Jumbo-Visma?! OK this was for the minileague the highest scoring day for velopoints, with 8 teams (for Paul, Paul, David, Stephen, Philippa, Iseabel, Dale & Simon) hitting their record daily scores. And David’s ThinFatBoys had 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th across the line. They notched up a huge 906 (nine hundred and six!) points, to put them nearly 1000 ahead of the best of the rest of us in the league. Look on in awe:

Team roster and scores for record-breaking Stage 18

Stat du Jour

Chart of the number of top 10 finishers for each minileague team, after stage 18 — 1st David’s TFBs; 2nd Martin’s Tourers; 3rd Dale’s Ostriches

Postcard from Lourdes

Andorra postage stamp depicting the tour de france 1993

jeudi le 21 juillet (Fête nationale belge) Lorda

For his efforts to win the Tour for his teammate, Wout won the combativity prize on the pilgrimage to the Hautacam to celebrate Belgian National Day. Hoorah for Leopold I, first king of the brand new independent country in 1831, though if the monarchy were to be restored in Belgium I reckon King Wout I would be a certainty.

Today’s postage stamp was for the 1993 Tour de France. When they rode three stages in the Pyrenees that year, Miguel Indurain was in the maillot jaune. I notice that when Indurain won each of his 5 consecutive Tours (1991-1995) his stage wins were all prologues or time trials. Both Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard have taken their stages in the mountains.