Tour de France race leader Tadej Pogačar's latest devastating climbing performance on the road to Isola 2000 both put the yellow jersey out of reach for his rivals and simultaneously confirmed that come Sunday evening, barring total disaster, a historic Giro d'Italia-Tour 'double' will be forming part of his palmares.
Before stage 19 and the Tour's assault on the highest paved mountain pass in France, La Bonette-Restefond, and a brutally difficult ascent to Isola 2000, there was still room for Visma-Lease A Bike to hope that Jonas Vingegaard could yet turn the tables on Pogačar.
Even as the race approached La Bonette, with three Visma-Lease A Bike team workers ahead and Vingegaard only three minutes down on GC, it still looked as if the defending champion might yet at least try to turn the tables.
But there was to be no resurrection of Vingegaard's hopes in the final week of the Tour de France - in theory the point when the lines between Pogačar being most vulnerable after his back-to-back Grand Tours, and the Dane being at his freshest after his lengthy recovery from his crash, would finally intersect.
Instead, it was Pogačar who romped way off the scales yet again, darting away from Vingegaard with 8.7 kilometres to go, roaring past Vingegaard's teammate Matteo Jorgenson 1.8 kilometres from the line and finally capturing his 10th Grand Tour stage win of this year, his 24th of his career, and his fourth of the 2024 Tour. Not to mention, in the process, gaining almost two minutes on Vingegaard and all but winning the 2024 Tour de France outright.
No matter his GC superiority, at Isola it was evident that Pogačar's appetite for victories is unquenchable. His latest triumph sparked yet more comparisons with Eddy 'The Cannibal' Merckx - who just like Pogacar, never tired of winning everything he possibly could.
But as his GC lead now yawned open to an almost unassailable five minutes and three seconds, following his latest summit finish success, Pogačar was happy to joke about the references to Merckx nickname, saying, "A cannibal? He eats human flesh. I eat sweets at the finish and gels and bars on the bike."
"Yes, of course, I know what you mean," he informed Sporza with a grin. "But let's not talk about cannibalism. That's not so nice."
Besides, he argued, "With my fourth stage win, I've already balanced things out with last year when I got two. So now I can say I have three stage wins every year."
Whilst hinting strongly that he would allow the breakaway to have a chance to go clear on Saturday's final mountain stage to the Col de la Couillole, Pogačar was evidently in no mood for such generosity on Friday.
His teammates Nils Politt and Pavel Sivakov did sterling work in keeping the break at a reasonable four-minute distance on the Bonette-Restefond. Then the relentless pace set by Adam Yates on the ascent to Isola itself was an obvious launchpad for himself to take off in pursuit of victory.
"I was here training a lot after the Giro, and I was speaking to my teammates about how we wanted to race this day right up to the point where I attacked," Pogačar recounted, "and it went really, 100% perfect."
He would, he said, have considered not living up to his Cannibal reputation and going for yet another stage win had it been Simon Yates, brother of his UAE teammate Adam, on the front of the race, and "someone who is not from a GC team" like Jorgenson.
"But I wanted to catch Matteo in the final because the whole team [Visma] put pressure on us from the start with [Wilco] Kelderman and Matteo on the front, so we were under pressure to control the race.
"So that's why I wanted to win because my team rode super strong today for the result."
Such is the certainty of his overall success in the Tour, now that questions in the post-stage press conference on Friday were already beginning to feel like those traditionally posed after a rider has won the Tour outright. Pogačar was even asked to describe how his preparation compared to 2023, when he was riding with a brace for his wrist, broken in Liège-Bastogne-Liège that April, for a long period.
"I was riding with it up until the Slovenian National Championships and I was still wearing it at nights during the first week of the Tour," he recounted.
"It was a big issue last year. I was not ready physically and mentally for the Tour."
However, he said, "Everything since Lombardy last year, in fact, has gone smoothly, so this is the biggest factor [in my 2024 success.] This year, I'm back to the 'old me' - and still improving."
"I'm more experienced, now, I don't make too many mistakes. Sometimes if you're anxious in the race, that's superbad and this year I was never under stress."
"I was in control in the Tour when I took the lead in the Galibier and that motivated me a lot, and I have been riding the last week without pressure. We'll evaluate the numbers afterwards but for sure this is one of the best [versions of] me."
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