Fascinating stage yesterday and I reckon quite a good indication for the tour overall, incidents/accidents permitting.
Brilliant for Hindley of course, but re the two favourites, Armstrongs old coach gave some great insight on his podcast yesterday.
The record time up the key climb yesterday was previously held by Pogacar from 2020 in his duel with Roglic. But Vingegaard went up yesterday one and a half minutes faster than that time (at 6.9 watts for over 20 mins). The point being, it’s not that Pogacar is off form necessarily, or doing anything wrong. It’s that Vingegaard is performing in an unreal way, on a another level, where he can just toy with the other riders. You could almost describe it as the kind of domination that Bruyneel’s own rider showed back in the day.
I guess the hope is that having caught Jumbo out yesterday, Hindley can hold on to his lead somehow …