{"id":13038,"date":"2025-07-22T09:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T09:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/13038\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T09:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T09:25:10","slug":"pogacar-eyes-mont-ventoux-win-to-seal-tour-de-france-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/13038\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Eyes Mont Ventoux Win to Seal Tour de France Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”><\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> will be revving up his engines to join the prestige winners list at Mont Ventoux<\/a>, the most famous mountain in the Tour de France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Starting the final week with a commanding lead and an ever-clearer line to a fourth yellow jersey, Poga\u010dar will want to carve his name onto the legend of Mont Ventoux.<\/p>\n

Mont Ventoux is much more than just another tough Tour de France climb. It is a legendary and strange place that seduces cyclists, plays a key role in the Tour\u2019s history and that almost always provides drama.<\/p>\n

In 1951, the Tour de France peloton lined up in Montpellier to climb Mont Ventoux for the very first time. This Tuesday, they return to the Giant of Provence, one of the most iconic and foreboding climbs in world cycling, for the 11th time in the history of the race.<\/p>\n

Also read: Meet Florian Lipowitz, the sensation of the 2025 Tour<\/a><\/p>\n

Montpelier is again the starting point for a stage that takes the peloton across the Herault and Gard and into the rolling hills and sun-baked villages of the Vaucluse, ranged around the mountain\u2019s lower slopes.<\/p>\n

The stage is set for a dramatic battle on the Tour\u2019s sacred mountain.<\/p>\n

A climb like no other
\n\"Pogacar\"Poga\u010dar raced Ventoux in 2021. (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

There will be no categorized climbs on Tuesday before the final assault, but with almost 16 kilometers of ascent at an average gradient nudging nine percent, you can expect some significant time deficits by the time the peloton reaches the top.<\/p>\n

The Ventoux dominates the Rhone valley of southern France. Unlike other peaks, usually tucked into a range of mountains \u2014 think of the Galibier or the Tourmalet \u2014 the Ventoux stands alone, sentinel, rising out of the olive groves and vineyards of the Vaucluse region of Provence. There are only five real bends on the long haul up the mountain and it\u2019s what many refer to as a \u201cflat-stick\u201d climb.<\/p>\n

\u26f0\ufe0f Arriv\u00e9e mythique au Ventoux, Pogacar immense favori, on vous propose un +1 si vous avez le top 3 dans l\u2019ordre demain<\/p>\n

Pour Thomas :
\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50Pogacar
\u2b50\u2b50Vingegaard Lipowitz
\u2b50Arensman Jorgenson Storer<\/p>\n

Pour Val :
\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50Pogacar
\u2b50\u2b50Vingegaard Roglic
\u2b50O\u2019Connor Tejada Arensman pic.twitter.com\/hoyKlTTePB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sans Oreillette (@SOreillette) July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

It has become infamous for many different reasons \u2014 the death of Tom Simpson in 1967, the sight of a jogging Chris Froome in 2016, the \u2018no-gifts\u2019 spat between Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani in 2000, the images of a near-hysterical Ferdi Kubler riding himself into the ground in 1955, the operatic celebration of a disbelieving Eros Poli after his 1994 stage win \u2014 but the Ventoux has also played a huge role in the culture, history and commercial development of the modern Tour.<\/p>\n

The first professional races on the mountain, such as the then Dauphine Libere (now the Criterium du Dauphin\u00e9) tackled it in the late 1940s and preferred the climb up from Malaucene on the north side, to the better-known ascent from Bedoin. In 1949, the post-war peloton climbed the north side, past huge banks of melting snow, on a mammoth 246-kilometer stage from Gap to Avignon.<\/p>\n

A mountain of solitude and wind
\n\"MontA mountain like no other. (Photo: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

TV coverage of the Tour first took hold in 1952, when the race ran a stage from Aix-en-Provence to the Ventoux and the images of the mountain were spectacular. But it wasn\u2019t shown live. Instead, footage, shot from two BMW motorbikes, was rushed to Paris for editing and screening.<\/p>\n

Yet the drama of the south side, tackled from Bedoin and ridden through the oppressive forest before the exhausting final kilometers through the daunting and exposed scree, captured the public imagination.<\/p>\n

What was this strange and eerie place?<\/p>\n

Even the French were seduced by the drama of the mysterious alien landscape, of heat, white rock, violent winds, and brutal gradients.<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar during the rest day<\/p>\n

This is what he said: \u201cI\u2019m almost confident to say the route was designed to give me a bit of scaredness, because we\u2019ve been to Hautacam and we are going to Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze where Jonas dropped me all three times.\u201d<\/p>\n

I like Mont\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/mHtTINNW9x<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Luk\u00e1\u0161 Ronald Luk\u00e1cs (@lucasaganronald) July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Tour director Christian Prudhomme, explaining the infrequent visits of the race to the mountain, said: \u201cThe Ventoux is different. Alpe d\u2019Huez thrives because of its regularity, the Ventoux because of its rarity. It\u2019s something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a stadium of cycling,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly beautiful, part forest, part desert. It\u2019s always compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exploits (of the riders) are magnified by the surroundings. The setting makes them even more magnificent. The great history of the Tour lives on thanks to the champions, but it also lives on thanks to the places too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eros Poli, the most unlikely winner
\n\"ErosEros Poli, a towering Italian known for his sprint leadouts, won after attacking over the top of Mont Ventoux. (Photo: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

When Eros Poli won in Carpentras in 1994, it was perhaps the most unexpected stage win in the Tour\u2019s long history.<\/p>\n

Poli was a leadout man, well over six feet tall, familiar to the broom wagon on most mountain stages and one of the key drivers in the \u2018bus\u2019 of sprinters, battling to finish within the time limit. Yet he was also a baroudeur, a breakaway artist, and his win also became one of the best-known successes on a stage over the Ventoux.<\/p>\n

Subject of a new film, called \u201cGrinta,\u201d Poli attacked alone on a stage, not dissimilar to this year\u2019s, traversing the Rhone vineyards and leading on mainly flat roads to the foot of the mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rode a 100-kilometer time trial,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI didn\u2019t need another rider. When it\u2019s flat, I don\u2019t need company.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian Eros Poli won stage 15 of the 1994 Tour de France, soloing 171km to take the win crossing Mont Ventoux finishing in Carpentras. pic.twitter.com\/JUMYrVOlll<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The World of Cycling (@twocGAME) July 17, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

He built up a huge lead, before he reached the critical left-hand bend, at St Esteve, that ushers in the mountain\u2019s pain cave.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was dying,\u201d he said of that moment. \u201cI have never ridden so slowly before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in my life, my speed dropped to single figures and I thought: \u2018I\u2019m going to die \u2013 I can\u2019t climb the Ventoux like this. This is impossible.\u2019 But I tried to keep calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poli had estimated he needed a 25-minute lead at the foot of the mountain and he was right. Despite a high pace by the peloton towards the top of the climb, led by rivals Pantani and Miguel Indurain, he descended into Carpentras to win by almost four minutes. It was a 170-kilometer lone move, one of the Tour\u2019s great solo victories. But he doubts if such an attack would work in the modern era.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to repeat that, but it\u2019s possible when it\u2019s very hot. That day it was over 40 degrees and in heat like that, the peloton doesn\u2019t want to race fast. Maybe they made a mistake in their calculations though that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A mountain of high drama
\n\"Froome\"Chris Froome and the famous running man incident in 2016. (Photo: BERNARD PAPON\/POOL\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

There is always drama on the Ventoux \u2014 Pantani and Armstrong feuding after the stage in 2000, Froome running uphill in the yellow jersey, Nicole Cooke soloing clear in the 2006 Grande Boucle Feminine, Jean Mallejac collapsing in July 1955, and of course, Simpson\u2019s tragic fate in 1967.<\/p>\n

It is a huge towering rump of wild and remote mountain, a range all of its own. Away from the road, the forests are filled with deer, wild boar and even, more recently wolves, who have wandered over to the Ventoux from the not-so-distant Mercantour national park.<\/p>\n

Tadej is looking forward to a mountainous final week at Le Tour \u26f0<\/p>\n

Stages 16 and 18 of the Tour de France finish atop Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze, two climbs where Jonas Vingegaard has put Poga\u010dar into difficulty in the past.<\/p>\n

Sprint Cycling
_____________
#TDF2025<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/iTmvHrwtdO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Velon CC (@VelonCC) July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

As anyone who\u2019s ridden up the mountain from the sunny valley, only to be confronted by fog, high winds or even hailstones at the summit, can tell you, it is not a place to linger when the weather turns. There are numerous tales of camper vans being blown over, or even off, the mountainside; of hikers lost in freezing fog and never seen again; of motorbikes and cyclists fatally misjudging the speeds on the careering descents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something you can do on a whim,\u201d former winner of the Vuelta and local resident, Eric Caritoux says. \u201cEvery year there\u2019s a few people who die on the Ventoux. It\u2019s not like drinking a glass of wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard climbed the mountain, back in 2021, the Dane had the upper hand, but based on what we have seen so far this year, there\u2019s little chance of a repeat scenario.<\/p>\n

Of course, Vingegaard will try as will others, but much will depend on the conditions.<\/p>\n

If the wind blows, it will be hard for any attacks to succeed. But as always on the Giant of Provence, you never know what could happen. Expect the unexpected.<\/p>\n

Velo contributor Jeremy Whittle is the author of \u201cVentoux: Sacrifice and Suffering on the Giant of Provence.\u201d<\/p>\n