Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma teammates opted to keep a low-profile on the rest day in the French Alps but the Dane will start the Alpine mountain stages just 39 seconds down on Tadej Pogačar and is widely considered his biggest – if not only – rival in this year’s Tour de France.
The 25-year-old Dane lost some seconds in the opening time trial and on the cobbled stage, while Pogačar has accrued 18 others thanks to time bonuses. However, their abilities appear to be closely matched.
After nine stages in the 2021 Tour de France, Vingegaard was already 5:32 down and only became team leader in Tignes on the rest day when Primož Roglič was forced to retire due to his crash injuries.
Some observers have suggested that Vingegaard has done well to limit his losses on terrain better suited to Pogačar and perhaps has a real chance of taking on the Slovenian in the mountains and even stop him taking a third consecutive victory.
“I’m still feeling good, it’s only been one week [of racing], one hard week of course, but the shape is good and hopefully I have some good days to come,” Vingegaard said on Monday before joining his teammates for a short ride in Morzine.
“Last year I was a bit more… not relaxed but let’s say pragmatic if something happened and it didn’t matter if I lost time. This year is the opposite; we don’t want to lose time. Being 39 seconds down on Pogačar is not nice but it’s the Tour de France and everything can happen.”
Vingegaard has become the primary leader at Jumbo-Visma once again after another Roglič crash, with the Slovenian losing two minutes after dislocating his shoulder on the cobbles of stage 5. Vingegaard also had problems on the stage – mechanical ones – but limited his losses to 13 seconds after a chase from teammate Wout van Aert.
“We’d done very well in the first stages, without crashing and losing time, but then in the first cobbled stages we had our bit of bad luck and we had a crash and I dropped a chain,” Vingegaard said.
“Looking back, that moment was pretty funny. I made a mistake, then the chain got stuck in the frame. I should have just stopped, pulled out the chain and put it back on. That would have been way faster than changing bikes four or five times.
“Ever since, the racing has been good again but Primož’s crash was not so nice and he lost a lot. But we will keep on fighting and there are still two weeks left in the Tour.”
Vingegaard admits that 39 seconds is not a huge gap but…
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