There was madness about Jumbo-Visma’s approach to stage 11 of the Tour de France, but there was method in it too. The chaos that ensued over the Col du Télégraphe and Col du Galibier had been planned seemingly before the Tour had even begun.
The Dutch squad generated an absurd day of racing, and the race’s previous logic duly collapsed upon itself on the Col du Granon, as Jonas Vingegaard dropped a flagging Tadej Pogacar to claim stage victory and the yellow jersey.
Vingegaard’s decisive attack 5km from the summit turned the race on its head. After he caught and passed previous attackers Nairo Quintana and Romain Bardet, his radio earpiece crackled into life with news that Pogacar was floundering further down the mountainside. With 4km to go, Vingegaard was already the virtual race leader. 3km from home, he was 1:30 clear of Pogacar. Come the summit, he would gain 2:51 on Pogacar to take a commanding lead atop the overall standings.
“For sure, I was getting energy from hearing that the gap was growing, but it was also a really brutal climb, and I was suffering a lot and I just wanted it to be over. I was completely on the limit from 3k to go already,” said Vingegaard, who had eschewed the chance to ride up the Granon during a pre-Tour training camp. “To be honest, when we did the recon of the stage, I didn’t do the last climb on the bike. I jumped in the car, so I didn’t experience it myself. Today I did, and it was a brutal climb.”
The Jumbo-Visma assault began on the Télégraphe, when Primoz Roglic tested the waters, and it continued unabated on the lower slopes of the Galibier, where Vingegaard and Roglic took it in turns to attack Pogacar’s yellow jersey, launching three accelerations apiece. Both men risked losing the Tour altogether by igniting the race with so much distance left to run, but, at least in Vingegaard’s telling, the odds were appealing.
“It’s true that it was a risk, but on the other hand, I think both Primoz and I have been second in the Tour already,” Vingegaard said when he took a seat in the press conference truck afterwards. “Last year, it was nice for me to be second on the Tour. If I didn’t try anything here, I’d probably be second again, but I preferred to try something and reach out for the victory, which we did today. I think it shows the mentality of the team, it’s incredible for me and also the team.
“We wanted to attack from far, we wanted to try with Primoz, and I think that shows again how big…
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