Mathieu van der Poel turns out not to be Tom Cruise and waves goodbye to yellow jersey after 'Mission Impossible'

Perhaps Van der Poel already saw it coming on Tuesday. The Dutchman from Alpecin-Deceuninck lost a brutal, punchy finale to Pogacar, who thereby drew level with him in the general classification. Van der Poel was allowed to keep the yellow jersey he earned on stage 2 because he had scored higher in the daily results than the Slovenian from UAE Team Emirates-XRG. But for a 33-kilometer time trial, Van der Poel didn’t hold many illusions.

In the Critérium du Dauphiné, he had finished close behind Pogacar with an impressive sixth place in the time trial. However, Pogi hadn’t been at his best that day, and as always, Van der Poel has to dig very deep to produce a time trial close to the best. He had done it before in the Tour de France: back then, after also taking yellow after winning stage 2, a surprising and impressive fifth place in the time trial on day 5 allowed him to keep the leader’s jersey.

‘Mission impossible’ – that’s what Van der Poel was up against when he left the start ramp last in Caen. On paper, he might have assessed the technical opening section favorably, but at the first checkpoint Van der Poel was already 26 seconds down on Pogacar. That trend continued, with a 45-second gap at the second checkpoint. By the third and final checkpoint, his deficit to the Slovenian had increased to 1:07, and at the finish it was clocked at 1:28.

Despite still taking an impressive eighteenth place in the time trial, Van der Poel has dropped to sixth in the general classification, almost one and a half minutes behind the yellow jersey. The Alpecin-Deceuninck leader will get two more ultimate chances for stage success on days 6 and 7, first with a punchy finish and then on Friday with the finish atop the Mûr de Bretagne. Yes, the same climb where he took yellow back in 2021. So besides Pogacar’s week, it could still become a Van der Poel week too.

“An unforgettable time in yellow,” he wrote on Instagram.