After four stages with Tadej Pogačar solidly in Yellow, the question is already being asked, "Is this it?" Does Tadej just take the jersey all the way to Nice?
On the one hand, you would say, no. Jonas Vingegaard was in a somewhat similar situation last year in an early mountain top finish where Pogačar sprinted ahead in the last kilometer, put about a minute of time into Jonas and the naysaying began. Turned out that Pogi won the battle on that one, but not the war. So, don't count out Jonas just yet. More on that in a moment. First to the other contenders.
Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel have looked very good, but no match for Pogačar so far. Yes, Remco has saved his bacon twice on downhills, as did Roglič today. But as Tom Pidcock would probably say, you don't win the Tour by going downhill faster than anyone else, you win by going uphill faster. Neither of these two have been able to go with Pogačar and Vingegaard even when the attacks only come at the very end of the climbs. When we get to the mountain top finishes, they will probably lose some significant time.
Remco would be expected to, perhaps, win both time trials and take back some of that time. But there is only 59KM in the two trials. The World Championship TT which Remco won last year was 48KM and Remco (for example) put a minute and a half into 5th place Wout Van Aert. So, maybe, Remco could take back a minute or two in the two TTs, but even that seems like asking a lot. I just don't see Evenepoel or Roglič winning unless there is a huge improvement in their performance, which seems unlikely.
So, back to Jonas. So far, he can go with Pogi on the uphills. Jonas seems to be having more trouble going downhill than uphill, which is understandable. I feel that Jonas may still have a slight advantage on the mountain top finishes. He has been equal to or better than Pogačar in time trials, so that should be, at worst, a draw.
However, as we saw today, there is no comparison between the team Jonas had last year and this year. Last year Jumbo-Visma had the legs to literally grind the rest of the peloton into dust. Wout and Sepp Kuss were then around to break any remaining legs when the road went uphill.
Wout is still finding his climbing legs and Sepp is not in the race. It is UAE this year that has the fire power to smash the peloton when the road goes uphill, as they did today. I foresee Jonas, Remco and Primož all being isolated before the last UAE rider drops off the GC group. So, that does not look good for Jonas, even if he climbs as well as Pogačar.
The other thing that looks like a problem for Jonas is the gravel stage on Sunday. Two years ago there was a cobblestone stage and Jonas came to a bit of grief and Wout pulled his bacon out of the fire. Surely Wout and Matteo Jorgenson will be specifically tasked with shepherding Jonas through the stage. But even with that, considering what Pogačar did in Strada Bianchi it is very possible that Jonas will lose some time on this non-climbing stage. Perhaps significant time.
It may seem cruel to mention that in that infamous cobble stage two years ago Roglič crashed and those injuries eventually took him out of the race.
I think that a viable scenario for the gravel stage is that a lead group containing Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel develops. Quite possibly, Evenepoel would be part of that group. I think Vingegaard and Roglič would have a very tough time to keeping up with that kind of group. Other contenders could have issues as well, such as Carlos Rodríguez. There could be significant time gaps.
Going into the mountains down by two minutes or more might be impossible for Vingegaard to make up. I don't see Pogačar collapsing on a mountain stage this year, like he did last year.
I feel like Pogačar's chance of winning the Tour is at least in the neighborhood of 80 per cent right now.