CHAMPAGNOLE, France — That’s deux for Soren Kragh Andersen at the Tour de France.
The Danish rider who won Stage 14 doubled down and raised his arms in victory again on Stage 19 on Friday, using another cunningly timed attack.
Behind him, saving their last reserves of strength for a time trial on Saturday that will decide the Tour podium, race leader Primoz Roglic and his rivals preferred to coast to the finish while Andersen hared off for the prestige of the stage victory.
He left 11 other riders he’d been with in a breakaway for dead with an acceleration 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the finish in Champagnole in eastern France.
He held up two fingers at the line — one for each of his stage wins.
The focus now shifts to the time trial, in which Roglic will be aiming to secure his first Tour title, which also would be the first by a Slovenian.
“So far, so good. I’m feeling good,” Roglic said. “It’s all on me.”
And if he suffers a mishap, Slovenia will still have a second chance, in the shape of Tadej Pogacar, who is second overall.
Just 57 seconds separate the countrymen. That lead should be ample for Roglic, the winner of time trials last year at the Spanish Vuelta and at the Giro d’Italia. But it could wither with a tumble, a bad breakdown or other accident on the tricky course into the Vosges, the last of five mountain ranges scaled by this Tour.
At national championships in Slovenia in June, Pogacar beat Roglic by nine seconds in a time trial that had a similar gain in altitude, about 700 meters, but was much shorter, at just under 16 kilometers.
The route on Saturday is more than twice that, at 36.2 kilometers. It will require a nuanced effort, with an initial flat section followed by a first uphill and then a twisting downhill before a sharp climb up hairpin bends to a small ski station, La Planche des Belles Filles. The finishing ramp is a very steep 20% gradient, with other sections before that of more than 10%.
Behind Roglic and Pogacar — nicknamed Rog and Pog by some — the third-placed rider overall, Miguel Angel Lopez from Colombia, will be aiming to secure his spot on the podium. He is 1 minute, 27 seconds off the race lead, which should put Roglic out of reach for him.