Pogacar soars as Vingegaard crashes out in a chaotic second week 🤯🇫🇷 | The Gruppetto with Rob Hatch

One week to go and the yellow jersey count looks like it's about to turn to five for Pogacar. But after that, well, following a dramatic first contact with the Alps, it's all to play for. Hello and welcome to the Groupetto. The second week of this Tour de France began with a firework-filled sky. The host nation's national day, le 14 juillet, Bastille Day, coincided with Stage 10. A visit to Le Lloron brought back memories of the last time that Taddei Pogacar showed even a hint of weakness in stage racing. Jonas Vigneault beat him on the finish line there two years ago. We all know that Pog would win that Tour and he was winning this one too. Two minutes and 42 seconds ahead of his biggest rival, but still with 12 stages to ride. It's another huge day in the hills. A Bastille Day bonanza. Big splits, big moves. This breakaway is growing out. This is one of the most brutal areas to race in, in all of France. The crack's starting to appear. UAE's pace is just ripping everything to shreds. Carapaz on the move. And now Pogacar goes. Look at this man, the pace is going up here. Heat flies past and Taddei Pogacar once again is in a league of his own. Pogacar makes Le Lloron his own. This time there's no competition on this finish line. It's Taddei Pogacar in the yellow jersey yet again. So with the heat still a factor, the four-time champion took another step closer to number five. The bunch and the watching world had little time to absorb the latest show from the world superstar as the sprinters were back to it and at record speed. The power men have come to the floor. Today is one of four remaining sprint stages. I still believe in myself. If everything goes well, I'm also one of the fastest. I think in the end we'll still be the same guys up there. Is there a possibility of me getting 70 points? Yes, but I think it's nice if the brakes will take it instead of us. Four in the breakaway and it has been absolutely lightning fast. And this is the moment they've got to go with everything they got. The time here for us to come down now. Because the peloton is hunting them down. It narrows even more with 600 meters to go. Koi is there. Metalia is in the middle right now. Kispel is here at the front. Gaviria is there as well. Søren Vardesjøl is there for Uno-X. This is a big opportunity. Uno-X could have their day to the line and Uno-X have done it. Søren Vardesjøl does it. He wins the fastest ever stage of the Tour de France. A 27-year-old record broken. 50.9 kilometers per hour. The fastest Tour de France stage ever. Raced at extraordinary speed and with a first-time winner. Uno-X are making a habit of it on stage 11. A year ago, Jonas Abramson was the winner as the Scandinavian squad fought to earn their first ever Tour win. Never say surprises are impossible, eh? And it was on the town's famous Monnichol racetrack that stage 12 began with Chalon-sur-Saône, the destination. The rest of the sprint pack were looking to take advantage of already scarce opportunities that were beginning to run out themselves. There were attacks, then a dangerous break after a hard-fought intermediate sprint and repeated attempts from some to weaken the fastest riders' legs. But none of that was enough. 518 meters to go. It is Jasper Sturven at the front who's going to lead this one out. You can see behind as he pulls off. Big crash. Gaviria's down. Several riders with them. Uno-X are there as well. It's still far to pull there. He's leading out. Philipsen left-hand side in the blues. They go for the speed bump. Philipsen's there in the blue jersey, but through the center is Frittin. Frittin's there. Here comes Tim Merlier. Here comes Tim Merlier. There is Tim Merlier. It's a hat-trick of wins at the Tour de France for Tim Merlier. Pogacar still led overall, with the GC riders briefly catching their breath before the hills returned. Stage 13 to Belfort looked like a day for the attackers. After a battle that continued on once more at a pace that threatened to break new boundaries, the breakaway swelled before the climbs thinned it down. Tom Pippcock was the day's headline member of that front group, starting to move up so much on GC that he'd begin to menace the podium places. But he wouldn't be the day's winner. In the closing kilometers, two riders forced a gap. Harold Tejada, the winner of a Paris-Nice stage in March, looked good. But Maros Schmid had the legs and the timing to win the final two-up sprint. Pippcock climbed to fourth overall in the end as the race entered the Vosges. It's a proper Vosges mountain stage. 3,850 meters of climbing. It is beastly. Today is an opportunity for sure. I just have to fight for my spot and then we'll see. I go for the wheel of Taddei. Of course, if I feel good, then maybe I'll try something. We will see. Motivation is high and everybody knows what to do today. UAE is going to control who goes in the breakaway. They will let the right group go. We're seeing this develop now. Look who's in here again. Tom Pippcock is in this group. It's a super strong breakaway. The gaps though are starting to open up. For what time will Pogacar really start kicking off? Tom Pippcock is about to be absorbed. But here we go. Taddei Pogacar on the move for the first time. It is looking like another secret. Alone again at the front. When he attacks, there's no answer. Pogacar adding to his lead at the Tour. After four furious hours and a repeat Machstein victory, this time the scenario for Pogacar was very different to his win three years ago. Instead of a flash of pride after losing the race overall, he now moved to a four and a half minute lead over Vigneault. If the future for the Tour might see a new stage win record being set just a handful of years after the last, it might also see a Frenchman contending seriously for the overall win. Just minutes after Pogacar pulled on the yellow leader's jersey, 19-year-old Paul Seixas donned the best young rider's white tunic, taking it off Juan Ayuso and becoming the youngest rider ever to wear a leader's jersey at the Tour. Pog was putting more astounding numbers on the board, but the name on the lips of the whole of the French nation was that of a young Décathlon star. We never had such a talented rider that could really match the very best in the world at such a young age. He proved that, you know, he will be a major actor of the Tour de France for the next maybe decade. Tour de France for sure a global event, but you have to remember that most of the fans attending on the side of the road are not cycling experts, they don't follow cycling all year long, and the charisma that Paul Seixas is building now, the way he's riding, is going to attract even more people and make the Tour de France even bigger. How would Seixas and the rest fare on the final stage of the week? Another day of the mountains, this time with a longer build-up, but an even more ferocious uphill test to the line. The Plateau de Solezon has been likened to the mighty Mortirolo in Italy, but without the history. Perhaps then, time to create some. It's a savage introduction to the final mountain range of this Tour de France, from the Jura all the way to the Alps. Today could bring anything. There's 20-odd riders just getting themselves away. When will Terry Pogacar impose himself today? Pitcock the man to lead everybody up here. Pitcock naturally is leading the descent. Crash here, crash here behind. We can see Jonas Vigneault. He's holding that right shoulder. Jonas Vigneault will not finish the Tour de France. And Pogacar setting the pace. It's like a freight train coming past him. Evenepoel's right on the wheel. They can't shake him today. So Remco Evenepoel going to the line. He's never won a road stage of the Tour before. Can he do it against the very best? Remco Evenepoel beats Pogacar at his own game. Today was going really well and he was on a really good day, I think. Yeah, bike racing sucks sometimes. It really does. I think the motorbike took us like basically double checked in the corner and ended up taking the left side of this traffic island. And Victor was following his line. And yeah, it was definitely not the smooth line to the right. And we ended up braking and then I'm sure there was a ripple effect. And I'm sure he crossed wheels or hit him. Yeah, I think he was behind Bruno or I'm not sure. For sure, we have a different Tour now. But I'm at least gonna just think about what happened today and hopefully check in with Jonas tonight. And we can take the rest day and think about the rest of the Tour. Yeah, it's really, really, really sad to see that Jonas is out. Since 21, we were always battling out for the victory. Maybe at the beginning, we didn't have the best relationship. But in the last two years, we became good rivals, good like respected rivals, competitors. But I also think kind of friends. And it's really... Yeah, the Tour will not be the same without him. And yeah, it got me thinking just before in an interview for France TV. Today, we had a doping control. He had it at two in the morning and got me thinking maybe this is also a reason that, yeah, one night that your sleep is ruined. Maybe a little bit less concentrated in the descent. And yeah, his Tour is ruined. Maybe this, I don't blame that, but it could be also a little bit connected. So yeah, it's just really sad to see him leave. Drama and not all of the kind we wanted to see. For Vigneault, it was a nightmare day. Woken up at 2 a.m. for an anti-doping control before Pogacar had the same treatment three hours later. On the road, it was the Dane who then lost control on a corner. He crashed and had to leave the race due to the resulting broken collarbone. It's the first Tour de France that he hasn't finished, having always ended the race around the hexagon in first or second. Now, the sport's past has left quite a few expensive bills to pay for its current generation of stars. I think we all agree and support anti-doping agencies, don't we? But should Vigneault have been woken up in the middle of the night and was fatigue a factor in what then happened? We'd love to have your view in the comments section below if you're watching on YouTube. But first, here's that of our experts. How much of a contribution did the 2 a.m. doping control make to Jonas making a mistake? You can't say it absolutely did. One thing you can't do is say that it didn't, because concentration levels and just everything that goes into getting through a Tour stage under incredible fatigue, let alone getting woken up two weeks into the race for a doping control. Anyone that says, no, no, that wasn't a factor, then I'm calling you out on it, because I'm saying it absolutely could have been and probably was a factor. So six more stages done, two poggy knockouts, one record-breaking sprint day, one medal-eared masterclass and a Mauro Schmidt breakaway gem to go with Evenepoel ever-present to the top in a mountain. A reminder that our own breakaway will be spending most of the last week on Alpe d'Huez and you can catch them and every remaining stage exclusively live on TNT Sports and HBO Max. If you miss anything, there are highlights on demand and from 7 p.m. each evening. You can also see free-to-air highlights on FIVE. The TNT Sports Cycling YouTube channel will bring you all the latest short-form content and we'll be back next week over there on the Champs-Élysées to wrap up the 113th Tour de France. For now, though, we'll leave you with the Alps. Goodbye. He has done it! Absolutely brilliantly so. He will win the stage and that he thoroughly deserves. And this is Pogacar taking control of the race. As amazing an individual effort as you're likely to see. Just look at this. Félix Galle is bidding for glory here. It is Geraint Thomas to win on Alpe d'Huez. The Tour de France blasts off to planet Pidcock on Alpe d'Huez.