Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) won his second stage of this year’s Tour de France with the fastest time, 35:53, in the stage 20 individual time trial from Libourne to Saint-Emilion.
He was 21 seconds faster than, Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who had gotten comfortable in the hot seat. Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) was the first rider to go nine minutes flat at the first time check and was almost 10 seconds faster there than Asgreen, but by the second time check at 20.1km to go was less than a second ahead and he would lose more time by the finish.
Van Aert had the best time at the first time check, then obliterated the best time at the second marker, and took a commanding lead to unseat Asgreen. Only Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) had a hot pace in the warm conditions to get top three times at the time checks to raise eyebrows, and he would finish third on the stage.
Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who won the first time trial of this year’s Tour, finished eighth so will hold his GC lead over Vingegaard, in second 5:30 back. Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) finished 23rd on the stage, but continues in third overall.
There were no major disruptions at the top of the GC standings from the time trial, but Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) did overtake Sergio Henao (Qhubeka-NextHash) for 20th overall.
Watch how stage 20 unfolded in the video highlights above.
