2023-07-07 04:17:00
We should have been alerted by the relative passivity of Jonas Vingegaard in the final climb. When Wout van Aert pulled away, following his infernal undermining work at the head of the group, the winner of the last Tour de France stood up on the pedals. But his acceleration lacked a bit of juice, as if the Dane had also been somewhat eroded by the infernal pace maintained by his partners since the start of the stage. Higher up, instead of letting go of Tadej Pogacar, Vingegaard mightn’t respond to the Slovenian’s attack. And here is how the sprinkler found himself watered and his advantage cut by more than half.
Vingegaard nevertheless put on a good figure and he will admit his happiness at having taken the lead in the general classification. “First of all, I’m certainly happy to be back in the yellow jersey, he confided. It’s very nice to take it back thanks to a really strong team. I didn’t have support only from Wout (van Aert) but from the whole team, even if Wout was impressive, he was still very strong today. We might have hoped for more, I would have liked to win the stage, but Tadej deserves it, he was strong. I was hoping to outrun him, but he was really strong on the last climb.”
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“It would be better to be two minutes ahead rather than 25 seconds, but it proves that this is going to be a tightly contested and exciting Tour.”
The day before, following pushing his opponent back a good minute, the Jumbo-Visma runner had confessed to having taken advantage of the situation when this time he and his team had devised a tactic which, they hoped, would send Pogacar to the mat to good. “Of course, we wanted to attack in the Tourmalet, continued the new yellow jersey. We wanted to attack on the Tourmalet and continue our effort on the descent and then beyond. It probably cost me the energy that I lacked in the final ascent but, I repeat, Tadej was the strongest, and he deserves his success.
A reply from Pogacar which did not surprise Vingegaard, who had already been wary of it 24 hours earlier. “I was not surprised by his reaction, said the Danish rider once more. He has already accustomed us to this several times in the past. We know very well that he can rebound at any time.
With his quick takeover, fifteen stages from the finish, the leader of the Jumbo-Visma risks having to control and support the weight of the race with his teammates, when he has less than half a minute of advantage over its main opponent. “Obviously it would be better to be two minutes ahead rather than 25 seconds, but I’m very happy to have the yellow jersey, it’s always very nice to have it. It proves that this is going to be a hard-fought and exciting Tour.”
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