Latest news with #VingegaardPogacar
Times
09-07-2025
- Sport
- Times
Tadej Pogacar takes Tour de France lead with time-trial statement
On Tuesday night they were stacking chairs in the Hall Antoine de Saint-Exupéry at Rouen, silently waiting for me to pack up so they could get to a late-opening restaurant. If there were a Yellow Jersey for last to leave the Centre de Presse, I'd have more than Tadej Pogacar. Still, long after many such evenings are forgotten, the one in Rouen will survive. I had written a story about the first four days of the Tour de France explaining that while Pogacar was very much on form, the performance of his principal rival, Jonas Vingegaard, had been highly encouraging. A two-times Tour winner, Vingegaard had raced more aggressively than at any time in the past, so strong that he was able to match Pogacar on the shorter climbs of northern France that don't suit him. The thrust of the argument was that Vingegaard was ready for another joust with his great Tour rival. Pogacar, of course, remained the favourite but it didn't seem to be pie-in-the-sky talk to suggest this could be their closest battle. Between them, they have dominated the past four Tours; two to Pogacar, two to Vingegaard, and they have finished first and second on more stages than any other two riders in history. After Rouen came the 33-kilometre individual time-trial at Caen. Remembering what Vingegaard had done to Pogacar in a 22.4km race against the clock in the 2023 Tour and more recently at the Critérium du Dauphine, I predicted he would make up his eight-second deficit on Pogacar and take the Yellow Jersey. At the time it seemed plausible. After filing the story, a good friend called. He is a sports scientist who has worked for a long time in cycling and has spent his working life analysing performance. He had watched the first four days of the race and thought it was obvious how the Tour was going to play out. 'How exactly?' I asked. 'Tadej will win by five to seven minutes. He will do a very good time-trial in Caen. I'm not sure Jonas can on such a flat course. I can also see Tadej winning the sixth stage to Vire Normandie and the seventh to Mûr de Bretagne. In my opinion Jonas has no chance of beating Tadej in theTour.' This wasn't what I wanted to hear. He explained. 'The stages to Boulogne and then Rouen were like one-day classics and Jonas was going full gas with six kilos less than Tadej (Vingegaard's weight is 60kg, Pogacar's 66kg). For him this was really taxing on his body and I am sure Jonas is going to pay for it. I would go further and say João Almeida [Pogacar's main lieutenant at UAE Team Emirates] will finish second in the Tour.' We have had these conversations many times. He is a scientist, a numbers man. I am a words man. Most times, the numbers man is right. And sometimes you write a piece that an hour later you wish you could take back. As soon as my friend made the point about Vingegaard paying for his efforts, little things fell into place. At the finishes in Boulogne and then Rouen, where he'd ridden so hard, it was clear from Vingegaard's body language that he'd gone deep into himself. Pogacar's face didn't even suggest he'd been in a race. Others lie on the road in exhaustion after their efforts, he jumps on his warm-down bike. Then there was Pogacar's mood. Asked about the likelihood of losing time to Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel in the race against the clock, he talked about it like it was his best friend's stag do. Couldn't wait. When on the night before the team suggested he go round to the hotel of the race organiser to get fitted up for his polka-dot skinsuit (as King of the Mountains), he shrugged his shoulders and said they could use the measurements he gave them for last year's time-trial at Nice. There are aspects to his character that we're still discovering. His performance in a time-trial at last month's Dauphine was seriously disappointing as he lost more time than expected to both Evenepoel and Vingegaard. Since then he has often spoken of being complacent that day and getting his pace wrong through the first half of the test. All down to him. Publicly he never mentioned serious technical issues with his bike but everyone in the team knew the bike was a big problem. It felt unstable. He let those responsible know that he wasn't happy but, in public, toys are never thrown from the pram. On the 33km loop at Caen, he was ready and the bike was right. He was right. His second-place finish and 16-second loss to the specialist Evenepoel was, in reality, a victory. With it came the Yellow Jersey and a 65sec gain on Vingegaard, who finished a lowly 13th, 1min 21sec down on Evenepoel. 'No, I don't have an explanation,' Grischa Niermann, directeur sportif at Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike team, said. 'Before the TT, everything was good, so there were no problems. In the TT he was not able to talk to me; I'm only able to talk to him, but we already heard after a few kilometres that he was eight seconds down on Remco, and he just lost more time as it progressed. I haven't spoken to him yet, but of course we hoped for more.' Vingegaard himself was matter-of-fact in his assessment. 'My legs were not feeling so good, so the result is matching my legs. I was fighting my bike and my legs today. Luckily, the Tour is long and I still believe in myself, in our plan, and still believe that we can win.' There were notable performances from the young French rider Kévin Vauquelin, who finished fifth and moved up to third place overall, behind Pogacar and Evenepoel. Vauquelin, 24, is from the town of Bayeux in Normandy. It is from here that the sixth stage will begin, traversing the roads that have been and still are Vauquelin's training ground. When he finished second in the Tour de Suisse last month, he apologised to his team-mates for not winning. He, too, has got something about him. Scotland's Oscar Onley was always going to find this pancake-flat time-trial difficult because he is a climber but he did well, finishing 2min 2sec down in 23rd place. He drops to 11th overall but a place in the top ten remains within reach. That would a terrific achievement. For another 22-year-old Briton, Joe Blackmore, the time-trial proved difficult as he lost 4min 34sec and dropped to 27th overall. That may not seem much but Geraint Thomas, winner in 2018 and riding his 14th Tour, now sits in 44th place and so the performances of Onley and Blackmore are admirable. They will both gain enormously from the experience. If they are to one day challenge Pogacar, they will have to progress. Victory at Caen went to Evenepoel but the day belonged to the reigning Tour and world champion. Evenepoel delivered a perfect time-trial but only a handful of seconds faster than Pogacar. In the mountains Evenepoel will have days where he will be left behind by Pogacar. If offered second place right now, he might well take it. Five days into the race, Pogacar has the Yellow, Green and Polka Dot jerseys. Quite the collection. He wasn't attaching much significance to it. 'The most important is Yellow, and the most important thing is to have it on the Champs-Élysées,' he said. 'Now, it's not important.' The difficulty for his rivals is actually seeing themselves as rivals.
The Independent
05-07-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
How Visma-Lease a Bike can solve Tadej Pogacar problem to boost Jonas Vingegaard's Tour de France hopes
Between them, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard have won the last five Tours de France. Pogacar looked near-invincible last year as he romped to victory with a six-minute margin; Vingegaard was a clear second, a mere three months after sustaining a litany of injuries, including a punctured lung, in a horrific racing crash. The year prior, Vingegaard came out on top, with Pogacar the only rider to trouble him; that came with the Slovenian still nursing a wrist fracture sustained in the spring. Even handicapped, the pair remain a league above the rest of the peloton. In theory the pair are significantly more finely-balanced heading into Lille for the Grand Depart this Saturday. Neither is carrying a major injury. But while the playing field between the pair is slightly more level than in previous years, it's the defending champion who still holds the upper hand, having won the Criterium du Dauphine warm-up race while scarcely having to get out of the saddle. Vingegaard has looked vulnerable since a concussion in Paris-Nice in March, and is lacking racing mileage in the legs, having trimmed his calendar as a result. But the Dane is a wily and calculating racer and will draw on his wealth of experience to take the fight to Pogacar – and if things go to plan, emerge victorious. The major advantage Vingegaard holds over Pogacar is in the formidable strength of his team. Both Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG are fielding their A teams for the Tour. But while UAE tends to perform well with Pogacar in attendance, the team has shown a fascinating tendency to break down without the Slovenian as the glue holding it together – and even, occasionally, with him there, too. Eyebrows were raised when Juan Ayuso appeared reluctant to pull for Pogacar on stage four of Tour last year, with teammate Joao Almeida looking visibly frustrated with the Spaniard. UAE has plenty of superstars in its ranks, but there's a downside to that too. Visma, by contrast, is a more cohesive, seamless unit of domestiques. Vingegaard can rely on the services of Matteo Jorgenson, double defending champion in Paris-Nice, as well as 2023 Vuelta a Espana champion Sepp Kuss and recent Giro d'Italia victor Simon Yates, in the mountains. The trio are among the best climbers in the world and while Yates is a newer addition to the team, joining over the winter, Jorgenson and Kuss are both stalwarts of the Visma project who have proven their loyalty and worth in the high mountains. On the flatter ground, Vingegaard will be shepherded by the might and muscle of European time-trial champion Edoardo Affini, Victor Campenaerts, and Tiesj Benoot. The team's biggest trump card is Wout van Aert, one of the biggest engines in the peloton and a rider capable of performing on any terrain. The Belgian has already delivered one Grand Tour-winning support ride this year, emptying his lungs for Yates on the penultimate stage of the Giro, going up the road as a satellite rider and doubling the Brit's advantage over his pursuers on the valley road to Sestriere. Visma have endured infighting in the past – Kuss can attest to that, having been attacked by teammates Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic en route to winning the Vuelta, before the team hastily ordered them to cooperate in the face of social media backlash. It seems the management has learnt from that affair: this feels like a team carefully hand-picked to avoid any side quests. And Visma's brilliant teamwork has been the key to isolating Pogacar in the past, reeling in the Slovenian's attacks during the 2022 and 2023 Tours, before setting off a chain of counter-attacks by different members of the squad, eventually wearing his resistance down. Beyond his team, Vingegaard may have a couple of other tricks up his sleeve. The route features several key climbs that the Dane has stamped his authority on before: the Col de la Loze and Hautacam in particular were crucial to breaking Pogacar in 2023, the last edition Vingegaard won. Since then the world champion has worked hard to erase any trace of weakness at high altitude, so the psychological impact of those climbs being back on the menu may be minimal. But it remains a possibility that he will be vulnerable there again. Vingegaard's famously cool head, compared to that of his more impetuous rival, may come in handy if Pogacar makes a mistake, whether that be wearing himself out with attacks or failing to fuel properly. Then there's the mountainous time trial, stage 13's 11km uphill run to the Peyragudes ski station. Again, Vingegaard has put time into Pogacar on this sort of terrain before, notably the Passy to Combloux time trial in 2023, which he rode a minute and 38 seconds faster. The Slovenian looked a little off the pace in the recent Dauphine TT, so that may be a stage Visma has earmarked to test his resolve. Visma may not need any of this, of course. Vingegaard sounded more bullish than usual on the eve of the race, telling reporters, 'I can say that I'm stronger than ever… I can say I'm on the highest level that I've ever been.' He'll certainly need to be, and his teammates will have to use all of their patience, nous, and race experience to get the better of the three-time champion this time around.
