{"id":793307,"date":"2026-07-11T10:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793307\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:14:11","slug":"at-a-s-o-theyre-scratching-their-heads-after-pogacars-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793307\/","title":{"rendered":"At A.S.O., they’re scratching their heads after Pogacar’s move"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tour de France 2026 is less than a week old, but according to many fans and riders alike, the race has already been decided to a greater or lesser extent. Top favorite Tadej Pogacar<\/a> won the sixth stage over the Col du Tourmalet by a wide margin and is wearing the yellow jersey, which has also thrown the organizers\u2019 usual expectations into disarray.When the race route was announced in October 2025, discussions at the Palais des Congr\u00e8s in Paris centered on a Tour with its absolute focus on the final stretch<\/a>. The final week of the race features an individual time trial, a mountain stage to Orci\u00e8res, two finishes at Alpe d\u2019Huez (one of which follows a stage with 5,500 meters of climbing), and the stage over Montmartre in Paris.<\/p>\n

A deliberately \u201cmilder\u201d route through the Pyrenees was chosen on paper, following the already relatively demanding opening weekend in Spain. However, Pogacar and his UAE Emirates-XRG team saw plenty of opportunities in Stage 6, in which the summit of the grueling Col du Tourmalet was a considerable distance from the finish. The Slovenian won the stage with a 2.40-minute lead over his closest rival, Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

Thierry Gouvenou, who is responsible for the Tour\u2019s route at A.S.O., looks back on that stage with mixed feelings. \u201cWe were a bit unsure about how tough Stage 6 would be, because we knew very well that the Tourmalet would be a decisive moment. To be honest, we hadn\u2019t expected such a big gap and thought the differences at the finish would be much smaller,\u201d he readily admits to Denmark\u2019s TV2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of suspense and excitement, you could say it was a letdown,\u201d the Frenchman concludes in his analysis. \u201cBut that\u2019s just how it goes in cycling. That\u2019s Pogacar for you. He\u2019s so strong that any route suits him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar\"\/<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar has a comfortable lead in the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Gouvenou: \u201cEven with cobblestones, Pogacar would be in the lead\u201d<\/p>\n

What could he have done, then? \u201cThe spectators wouldn\u2019t understand if, for example, you were to ride stages in the Pyrenees with a not-too-difficult mountain pass halfway through and then nothing but flat terrain afterward. We decided to have the route climb the Tourmalet in the hope that the gap would be smaller. But the gap was huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gouvenou points out that his options are also limited. \u201cThe problem isn\u2019t the route. The problem is the gap between Pogacar and the others. If you look at the riders behind him, Vingegaard is 30 seconds back and the others even further. That\u2019s fine. The only problem is the gap Pogacar ultimately has over the other riders. But there\u2019s nothing you can do about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, Paris-Roubaix is the only race that Pogacar might struggle to win, so even if there were more cobblestone stages, he\u2019d still be in the lead after four or five stages. You can\u2019t compete with Pogacar,\u201d Gouvenou concludes on TV2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tour de France 2026 is less than a week old, but according to many fans and riders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[373365,64,63,784,85,6494,346968],"class_list":["post-793307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-aso","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}