Boise High grad became a lightning rod at the Tour de France. How did he finish?
A bout of bronchitis during the Alpine stages limited Matteo Jorgenson at his fourth Tour de France, where he finished 19th overall Sunday and helped lead his Dutch squad to the team title. But the Boise High grad spent plenty of time in the headlines while feuding with eventual four-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar.
Pogačar openly clashed with Jorgenson and the rest of the Visma | Lease a Bike team throughout the tour, even shoving Jorgenson during the seventh stage as both reached for a water bottle and then criticizing him in a postrace interview.
But Jorgenson refused to back down and even offered a concession to Pogačar during the 11th stage, slowing down with the rest of the leaders to let Pogačar catch up after a crash.
“I think after all his accusations of unsportsmanlike behavior and such, which I’ve never heard from him before, he can now trust that we want to beat him in a fair way,” Jorgenson told reporters, according to IDL Pro Cycling.
Jorgenson’s team regularly pushed the pace during the Tour’s early stage, jumping out to wide early leads in an attempt to wear out Pogačar, the defending champ and Tour favorite. The strategy drew plenty of criticism, but Jorgenson would hear none of it and said, “You’re obligated to try to beat him.”
“If people want to see a bike race where we sit in the wheels and wait ’till the last climb and then let him ride away, then it would be a really, really boring bike race,” Jorgenson told reporters, according to Velo magazine. “If you don’t try, then you never know.”
That approach and Jorgenson’s response to Pogačar’s shots earned him praise from former seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.
“Matteo doesn’t seem like someone who lets people walk over him, and I like that,” Armstrong told The Move podcast. “He doesn’t take it when people talk badly about him.”
Jorgenson’s early form pushed the 26-year-old up the leaderboard, where he sat in fifth place entering the 12th of 21 stages. But a disastrous day in the Alps saw Jorgenson lose more than 10 minutes to Pogačar during a single stage, all but ending his chase for the yellow jersey.
Jorgensen refused to make excuses but later revealed before Sunday’s final stage he came down with bronchitis during the Tour.
“You can’t ever say how much, but this last week especially, the lungs and the bronchitis — just so many ups and downs,” Jorgenson told Velo. “In the race, you have minutes where your airways are closed and you think, ‘I can’t push at all.’
“You cough up some mucus and it’s clear, and you think back to normal, but you’re never truly back to 100 percent capacity. It’s just been a case of staying present and seeing what I can do on each mountain, and the rest is pretty much out of my control.”
Jorgenson finished the Tour with six top-10 stage finishes, including a fifth-place finish as teammate Wout Van Aert won Sunday’s final stage in Paris. Jorgenson finished second among Americans behind teammate Sepp Kuss, while fellow Boise High grad Will Barta ended up in 102nd place overall and fifth among Americans.
HUERTA SCORES TWICE IN RETURN
After nine months with the most decorated women’s soccer club in the world, Centennial High grad Sofia Huerta (2011) quickly found her way onto the scoresheet in her return to her NWSL club.
The defender and Boise native scored both goals in the Seattle Reign’s 2-1 win over Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds in a July 20 friendly during the NWSL’s international break. Huerta first cleaned up a corner kick in the 26th minute, then converted a penalty kick in the 53rd minute for the game-winner.
“Obviously, I’m just wanting to fit in as I can because the team is doing so well,” Huerta said in a postgame press conference. “Whatever I can do to contribute will be a positive. But it’s been really nice being back, and everyone has been so welcoming. It feels like a new team because everyone is so new, but obviously I’ve been here for a long time.”
Huerta spent nine months on loan with France’s OL Lyonnes. She played in 17 of 32 games for the European juggernaut, helping lead the club to its 18th French league title in 19 years and the UEFA Champions League semifinals.
The NWSL’s all-time leader in assists (31) rejoins Seattle, which sits in sixth place out of 14 teams at the halfway mark of the season.
TWO IDAHO WOMEN SIGN PRO SOCCER CONTRACTS
Former Rocky Mountain standout Kelsey Oyler (2021) and Boise High goalkeeper Bre Norris (2021) signed with a pair of USL Super League teams ahead of the league’s second season.
Oyler signed as a defender with Spokane Zephyr FC, returning to a city where she played three seasons in college at Gonzaga. The two-time Idaho all-class Gatorade player of the year spent her senior season at Arkansas, leading the Razorbacks to the Sweet 16 at the NCAA tournament last fall.
Norris joins Brooklyn FC after spending the spring with NWSL club Angel City on a temporary relief contract. She did not appear in a game before her contact expired at the end of June. But the two-time West Coast Conference goalkeeper of the year was recently called into a national team camp for Mexico’s U-23 squad.
Boise is scheduled to field its own USL Super League team in 2027.
