Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) performed impressively on an individual basis to take out the penultimate stage time trial at the Tour de France, but he was just as excited for overall winner and teammate Jonas Vingegaard, who confirmed his yellow jersey victory with a strong ride to second.
“I’m emotional, winning this Tour de France as a team is really special,” said an emotional van Aert in the post-race interview. “Today was a perfect scenario, Jonas was such a strong guy, such a good guy. I want to thank the whole team for such a special three weeks.
“I’m super tired after three weeks and I gave it all today. I want to win races, today I wanted to take the stage and for Jonas to take yellow.”
The Belgian star wiped away tears following having the victory confirmed and it was a touching moment for Vingegaard as well as he greeted his family after the finish, also taking his daughter to the podium to receive the yellow jersey.
The 40.7-kilometre route had some descents and rolling sections with two climbs just ahead of the finish ensuring that riders needed to keep some energy in reserve in sunny conditions on the testing course.
Two-time world champion in the time trial, Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers), set the early pace on the rolling route to Rocamadour, setting new fastest marks at each of the three time checks as he finished with an average speed of over 50 kilometres an hour.
Van Aert blitzed through the course in his typical powerhouse fashion, overtaking two-minute man Nick Schultz (BikeExchange-Jayco) on route. Van Aet continued impressing with his faster intermediate checks and then flying up the final climb to the line to set a time of 48 minutes flat.
It was then the turn of the general classification riders to set off in sequence, with significant battles among the contenders vying for fifth overall, with Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hansgrohe) winning the battle against Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) and Louis Meintjes (Intermarche) as he jumped two spots from seventh, though Meintjes actually slipped all the way to eighth behind Romain Bardet (Team DSM) with a surprisingly poor ride.
Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers), Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Vingegaard all started their efforts fast, going close to van Aert at the early time checks with Vingegaard actually the fastest on the day at the 10.6-kilometre mark, seven seconds ahead of Pogačar.
The trio ended up coming back a bit to van Aert on the rest of the course, though Vingegaard remained in with a shot at the stage win until a little wobble on a descent saw him round a corner wide, perilously close to a rock wall. The Tour leader backed off a bit after that and ended up finishing behind his teammate as he took the final few hundred metres to the line a bit easier, finishing second on the day, 19 seconds behind van Aert, with Pogačar third, Thomas fourth and Ganna fifth.
Vingegaard confirmed his overall win in the general classification with a slight extension of his overall margin over Pogačar to three minutes and 34 seconds.
The Tour de France continues with the traditional final stage procession into Paris, the final circuits on the Champs-Élysées an expected day for the sprinters. Watch Stage 21 on the SBS SKODA Tour Tracker from 12.20am AEST, with the SBS and SBS On Demand broadcast to start from 12.25am AEST.
