On the slopes of mountains, time itself is distorted. Time and space. The time one has spent laboring is distorted against the backdrop of how much time is left to go. Space is distorted when the angle of incline ticks up and gravity is the enemy. What should be a measly distance of 2 kilometers is in fact the most horrific battle imaginable — against not only whoever is pursuing you, should you be alone out front, but against what is left within you. No one knows this better now than the American rider from Movistar, Matteo Jorgenson.
Ahead of the Puy du Dôme, a mythical mountain left unvisited for over three decades, what was left of the breakaway fractured and played skittish games with itself, broke itself apart out of sheer anxiety and anticipation, a process which, at its end saw Jorgenson alone with 40 kilometers of severe, torturous pain ahead of him. He grabbed those kilometers by the bullhorns and pulled a minute out of them, which in his defense seemed like enough. Behind, the cruel process of unraveling continued. Matej Mohorič and Total Energies’ Burgaudeau, two other instigators, shed their dead weight, pursued Jorgenson bit by bit and behind them lingered a dangling Pierre Latour and Michael Woods, whom the cameraman, albeit unwisely, forgot about.
The last time the Tour visited the Puy du Dôme was in 1988. Johnny Weltz, a Dane from the team Fagor-MBK won. (Pedro Delgado would go on to win that Tour.) As Jorgenson went off alone, it occurred to me that the volcanic climb had a certain untarnished status to it. It was not once conquered during cycling’s darkest era, which is not to say that the era in which it was last conquered nor the era in which it was being conquered now were clean. Yet it is a small gift that we could watch Jorgenson alone on the Puy du Dôme and not have to mention Lance Armstrong, not have to wring our hands about climbing times relative to the 90s and 2000s. My friend Jan, a cycling coach, said that I was thinking about this wrong. The mountain is older than cycling. The mountain is more steadfast than cycling. The mountain is not responsible for human burdens, it is merely the backdrop on which they unfold.
I do not consider myself a patriotic person, in fact, strictly the opposite. However I would be lying if I said the success of this generation of American cyclists doesn’t bring a little brightness to the quite dark reality of being from the United States in the year 2023. As I watched Jorgenson pull pedal after pedal out, I found myself wanting him to win, as though by writing his name on this long-untouched mountain would in some way right so many American wrongs. This is not rational, though I suspect I am not alone in feeling it.
Those last two kilometers were the longest two kilometers I’ve witnessed in a long time. At the beginning of them, it seemed almost certain that Jorgenson would win. In fact, nothing could have robbed me of this belief. I had written it out in my own mind. Yet minutes are never long on mountains. All it takes is a little bit of energy on one end and a little bit of flagging on the other to stitch them up.
It was Mohorič who kicked it off first against his companion Latour, who had since clawed back. Thirty seconds evaporated almost immediately. Latour relented. Behind, however, was Woods. Not only behind, but accelerating, renewed, determined, channeling the energy of Steve Bauer, the last Canadian star to place on Puy du Dôme, fourth in 1988. It was as though Woods had arisen from the dead. He was gone and then he was there. He was sputtering and then he was fine. First Latour, then Mohorič watched as Woods went by. In the final kilometer, between all of these players, it was a game of numbers and anyone who has spent any time at the casino knows that numbers are not always your friend.
The sport of cycling is based on the endurance of suffering. Most of the time, that suffering is kept under wraps or it disappears behind a cameraman more interested in what’s ahead of him. But when Jorgenson passed under the flamme rouge on the Puy du Dôme, his suffering was total and unbearable to watch. He had put in the biggest ride of his life. He had seemingly locked down the title of vanquisher of the mythical mountain. There was not much longer to go. The whole world, I think, hoped he would last until the end because he was suffering in a way that — to paraphrase something Jani Brajkovič once said to me from his perspective on the other side of the camera — resonates with all of us who have in our lives suffered. Pain is universal and Jorgenson was in tremendous and perilous pain.
In that last five hundred meters, the long distance, warped by gradients of 14%, vanished beneath Jorgenson’s wheels as Woods got in his rhythm, a rhythm maintained because not only because he was stronger but because he knew himself better than the others. He could have tried to stick it out with those who had gone up the road first. He could have played more games. But he trusted in his pace, trusted the parameters of his body, trusted in the mountain to settle the score for everyone else, which it would. He did not panic. He rode his bike quietly and alone until he was not alone any longer. He saw Jorgenson ahead. The motorbikes parted for him.
Woods got closer and closer, as Jorgenson started spinning on fumes. Not far now stood the great spire atop the mountain, which must have felt to the men like the apex of the very earth. Woods passed the American whose last drop of resolve crumbled in his wake. He would not come back. He would keep riding until the finish line disappeared under him. Suddenly, the long day was over for Matteo Jorgenson and for the two other finishers, Latour and Mohorič who would, in the end, pass Jorgenson to leave him without a podium. Few endings in sport are as cruel, but only narratively. The cruelty was not intentional. Woods, at the age of thirty-six, did not win one of the biggest days of his life to be cruel.
Behind, the cruelty was still unfolding. Tadej Pogačar doused himself with water, his chest showing through a soaked through a now transparent white jersey. Jumbo Visma drilled the pace, spending Kelderman, Van Aert, Kuss, one by one. Yet their games didn’t quite work this time. Some hills are so steep and so long they make tactics a tad futile at a certain point. The next time we see the peloton, all of Pogačar’s and Vingegaard’s teammates have vanished.
I remember something Pogačar’s coach Iñigo San Millan said to me once when I asked him about the Slovenian’s alleged struggles with the heat. To paraphrase, San Millan claimed that in his opinion, the struggle for Pogačar was merely mental and that physically he was fine. I forgot about that after Pogačar was dropped in Stage 11 last year, which was an issue with fueling as much as it was with heat. Today, on a scorcher, Pogačar made the first attack. He was soaked but by no means finished. Whoever was with him and Vingegaard up to that point — Simon Yates, Tom Pidcock — vanished. They just vanished. The two men would not be seen again.
Pogačar, a few bike lengths ahead, struggled like a fish in the fisherman’s (or perhaps the fishmonger’s, if we’re being cheeky) grasp to stay that way. He wriggled around on the bike, lept out of the saddle, weaved across the road, wanting to keep every single second he had over Vingegaard who paced coolly behind. And yet, despite his composure, Vingegaard could not close that small gap that separated him. Pogačar heaved, sprinted, jolted. At the end, he’d stolen back another eight seconds in his fight, putting him only 17 seconds behind in the general classification before the first rest day. The expectation that he would cave to Vingegaard on steep, long, climbs was, like the wilting flower narrative, temporarily put to rest. Tadej Pogačar showed once more that he is not predictable.
At the top of the Puy du Dôme, Vingegaard smiled at his daughter and wife. Pogačar poured more water all over himself. Woods, giddy with happiness, was whisked off to the podium. Jorgenson sat in the grass, his head in his hands. Yes, today was closed for him, but the rest of his days are wide open. The helicopter circled above, panning out to the mountain around which the road was wrapped like a string around one’s finger, a reminder of battles past as today’s Anquetils and Poulidors nurse their wounds with tiny cans of Coca Cola.
The next two weeks are to me a mystery.
A minute at the start of a big climb? There is a story from cycling's Dark Ages ...
Eros Poli's job was leadout man for Mario Cipollini. He was 194cm tall and weighed 85kg. If the peloton had taken a vote on "least likely to win on Mont Ventoux", he would have been the leading contender. And yet, on stage 15 of the 1994 Tour de France, he did triumph on Ventoux. Or rather, he triumphed over it. That year, the Ventoux stage did not finish at the top of Ventoux, but down the other side in Carpentras. So when Poli attacked 60km into the stage, still 100km from the start of the climb, the peloton let him go.
Naturally, Poli was not very fresh when he started Ventoux, after his 100km time trial. When the peloton finally got there after him, another big man, Miguel Induráin, put down the hammer. He had no interest in catching Poli, he just wanted to control his rivals; but the effect was to bring back Poli at *one minute per kilometer*. However, since Poli started the climb with 25 of them in hand, he cleared the summit still holding a 5 minute lead; more than enough to ensure a famous victory.
thank you, again.