tour reporter
Tadej Pogacar gains a few more seconds on Yellow Bib’s Jonas Vingegaard at the Grand Colombier. Nevertheless, he can feel like a winner. Because Pogacar’s team invests a lot for little profit.
The insight of the day came from Matxin Joxean Fernandez. “Cycling is not mathematics, it’s the legs that decide”the Spaniard noted below the Col de Grand Colombier firmly. And who would disagree with the sports director of Tadej Pogacar’s UAE team.
But after two weeks of cycling and 13 stages, it’s still not clear which of the two main contenders for the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar or Jonas Vingegaard is in the lead when it comes to “better legs”. The gap between the two is just nine seconds. And so calculations are now being made in order to draw conclusions from what happened on the 13th stage of the Tour de France Grand Colombier to pull.
Both rivals claim a “good day”
It was now “a successful day for us”, as Pogacar claimed. Or rather “a very good day for us”, which Vingegaard claimed for himself and his team Jumbo. Were the four seconds that Pogacar drove out on the yellow jersey on the road and the four bonus seconds that he earned as third on the stage, actually back “a small victory” for the Slovenian? Or can Vingegaard feel like a winner because he’s still dressed in yellow?
The fact that both sides claimed the better day is part of the ritual of this duel between the two top favorites, whose fight the competition can only watch in amazement. Viewed from the outside, Jonas Vingegaard left this stage as the point winner this time, which was the start of a whole series of maximum difficulties in the Alps.
Pogacar’s team invests a lot
The UAE team had shown from the start that they wanted to claim this day for themselves. With the day’s break in place, Pogacar’s colleagues controlled the pace of the field, which would normally have been the yellow jersey’s job. But Jumbo-Visma had no interest in it this time. “We wanted the breakaways to go through and that’s what happened”said Vingegaard, looking very pleased.
Pogacar looked a lot less tidy than usual while summing up the day. “We would have liked to have won the stage”, said the Slovenian. That’s why he sent his team forward. But when the field started the final climb four minutes behind, they were unable to decisively reduce the lead of eventual stage winner Michal Kwiatkowski. Pogacar’s attack only came 450 meters from the finish – not enough to get more time than four seconds.
Vingegaard’s team rests
So while the UAE team invested a lot for comparatively little profit, Jumbo-Visma was able to conserve energy for the difficult weekend in the Alps. Tiesj Benoot, Christophe Laporte and Wout van Aert pulled out early and let the day end comparatively leisurely. “We told some of the guys that they could take it easy from the bottom of the mountain,” said Vingegaard, who was not alone until shortly before the end because Dylan vanBaarle, Wilco Kelderman and especially Sep kiss him the Grand Colombier up until Pogacar’s attack.
Whether and which of these calculations will work out in the end will probably be seen in the next two days. There are two difficult Alpine stages on the menu. “A Complicated Weekend”, expects UAE Sports Director, Matxin Joxean Fernandez. The eight seconds gained by his protégé Pogacar were therefore very important: “We are in a perfect position.” They probably see things in a similar way at Jumbo-Visma. The legs of the two protagonists decide the rest.