Evenepoel leads the 'Big Four' in thrilling Tour time trial, Pogacar holds onto yellow

After two sprinter stages, the peloton's focus shifted to the first chrono of this Tour. The 25-kilometer route, cutting through vineyards with 300 meters of elevation, was slightly undulating. For some riders, it was a semi-rest day, while for others, it was one of the key days of this Tour de France.

Mark Cavendish was the first to start at 1:05 PM, taking it easy as expected. The Brit, like the other sprinters, could enjoy the busy course in France, where the weather was beautiful. Attention briefly turned to Soren Waerenskjold of Uno-X, who recently won the chrono in the Baloise Belgium Tour, but he also chose not to push too hard.

The first impressive time surprisingly came from Lenny Martinez, a pocket climber for Groupama-FDJ. The Frenchman stayed in the hot seat until bigger engines like Luke Durbridge (Jayco AlUla), Nils Politt (UAE-Team Emirates) and especially Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost) had their turn. Other riders like Yves Lampaert (Soudal Quick-Step) and Tim Wellens (UAE-Team Emirates) did not go all out.

Bissegger secured a spot in the hot seat with his time of 30:06. This lasted about half an hour until Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa - B&B Hotels) extended his good form from day two into France. Oier Lazkano of Movistar fell short, but Vauquelin improved Bissegger’s time by just under half a minute. Meanwhile, Mathieu van der Poel took it easy in the denim grey of Alpecin-Deceuninck.

Next up was Stefan Küng, who lived up to his reputation as a top time trialist with a time of ten minutes, ten seconds faster than his compatriot Stefan Bissegger. However, a chain problem on an uphill section ended Küng’s aspirations for the day’s victory. Victor Campenaerts positioned himself just ahead of Vauquelin after a strong time trial.

The attention then turned to Wout van Aert. The Belgian riding for Visma | Lease a Bike was already twenty seconds behind at the first checkpoint and couldn’t turn the tide during the chrono, which no doubt left him with a bitter feeling about this time trial. Especially considering that the Olympic time trial in Paris is less than a month away.

After Van Aert, we entered a sort of vacuum, although Julien Bernard’s time trial in his home region and solid times from Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) and Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R) were notable. The same goes for Ben Healy (EF), who even threatened Campenaerts’ time.

After Healy, the focus shifted to the general classification riders, with Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) making a strong impression and riding a solid time trial. Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hansgrohe), Pello Bilbao and Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) also posted good intermediate times, as did Matteo Jorgenson, on behalf of Visma | Lease a Bike.

The first man to surprise the true time trialists at the first checkpoint was Primoz Roglic, who was one second faster than the previously fastest Küng. Juan Ayuso and Joao Almeida were ten seconds slower than Roglic, in line with Jorgenson. Meanwhile, Evenepoel, Pogacar and Vingegaard had also started, with the Slovenian’s grit in the first corner setting the tone. The other two seemed to struggle slightly, but this didn’t necessarily indicate the outcome. The first checkpoint confirmed Evenepoel was the fastest, three seconds ahead of Pogacar, with Vingegaard eleven seconds behind and Roglic twenty seconds behind.

As the first finish times came in, Jorgenson’s split was notable: he lost time during the course but gained it back near the finish. Almeida had a similar split, which was interesting information for the imminent Big Four, who had already proven this chrono was mainly about them.

At the second checkpoint, the ranking was maintained. Roglic set the best time, but Vingegaard beat it by fifteen seconds. Evenepoel, in turn, did twenty-three seconds better than the Dane, leaving only Pogacar to pass that point in the stage. He turned out to be ten seconds behind Evenepoel. In the descent, Pogacar reduced this to six, which meant the race was still on. Even more so when Evenepoel had a brief chain problem.

At the finish line, Roglic posted a time of 29:26. Vingegaard was three seconds behind, but the real battle for the day’s victory was between the Belgian and the Slovenian. Evenepoel completed the time trial in 28 minutes and 52 seconds, leaving Pogacar to reveal his time at the finish line. He couldn’t beat Evenepoel, who thereby won his first-ever Tour stage.