Stage 18: Tour de France Summary
Stage 18 of the Tour de France was a grueling trek up three mountains. Stage 18 was won by Ben O’Connor. That was a good ride for him. He has had a disappointing tour, so this was a good result for him. He was also voted the most aggressive rider on this difficult stage. There were other big goings on. Enric Mas abandoned the tour, though his teammate, Tadej Pogacar, came in second in the stage, as he rode away from Jonas Vingegaard. Ben O’Connor and Einer Rubioboth rode away from all the other riders. Do you think Vingegaard will ever challenge Pogacar again?
Stage 18 Summary
In Stage 18, the big story, apart from Mas abandoning the Tour, was that Vingegaard did not attack race leader Pogacar. He is not going to. Stage 18 was the last chance. Pogacar sprinted ahead of Vingegaard on the final climb of the day, showing his strength. He took second place on stage 18. However, the big winner of the day was Oscar Onley. He looked great and is a future Tour winner. O’Connor dominating the stage like he did is also a big story. He was 31 minutes behind Pogacar, so his win of stage 18 was a bit of redemption for him. The ride was 107 miles and five hours.
The winner of the very difficult stage 18 was O’Connor. He became the second Australian ever to win two stages of the Tour de France. Pogacar finished second, sprinting away in the final climb. Vingegaard finished third. Onley was fourth and solidified his lead in the best young rider competition. He could be a future winner of the Tour. Rubio finished fifth. It was disappointing that he finished fifth, given his day-long sprint ahead.
There were no changes again in the overall classification following stage 18, though there were some big changes in the relative time differences. Pogacar stayed in first, Vingegaard was in second place, now 4:26 back. Florian Lipowitz stayed in third, though he bled quite a bit of time, 11:01 back.
Onley stayed in fourth place, 11:23 back. He is now only 22 seconds from the podium in Paris. Primoz Roglic stayed in fifth place, 11:49 back. There were big changes on the second page of the leaderboard. Perhaps the biggest change was that American Sepp Kuss had now risen to tenth place overall. He was right behind O’Connor, who took three spots in the overall classification with his stage 18 winning ride.
Crown the King
With his second-place finish on the stage and the fact that he rode away from rival Vindegaraard, there is no question that Pogacar is the best rider of the Tour. Unless he falls off his bicycle in the remaining stages, he will win the 2025 Tour de France. The question is how much will he win by? His lead over his rival is 11 seconds greater than it was, and most of the other riders in this are ten minutes, or even more, behind in this Tour.
With three mountains climbed and two descended, the race finished uphill on the Col de la Loze, and the riders put their lives on the line. The climbs were difficult and pushed the riders to their limit. However, the descents, more than 60 miles per hour, were dangerous. There will be more mountains on tomorrow’s stage, but Pogscar will win the tour. The yellow jersey belongs to him. It remains to be seen if he will win the Green and the Polka Dot jerseys as well.
Conclusion
After his win on stage 18, the 29-year old Australian said as he dreamed of a podium finish in Paris, “Well, that would be the dream one year, one day. But who knows? In terms of reality, you end up as the best rider you are at the finish line in Paris,” he assesses. “I talk about not getting ahead of myself, but it’s for sure something that would be on my mind one day. That would be sick in Paris. But it only happens to a couple of people in their lifetime. So that’s my overall dream one day.”
Tomorrow will be the last mountain stage of the Tour. Stage 19 will be difficult as well. The stage from Albertville and La Plagne. The climbs are two category two, one category one, and two beyond categorization climbs. It is another uphill finish of a beyond categorization climb.
