Jonas Vingegaard has defined that his lack of curiosity in collaborating with Tadej Pogačar in the course of the Tour de France gravel stage 9 on Sunday, when the 2 managed to drop the remainder of the GC rivals, was based mostly on a crew technique of all the time remaining along with his teammates for so long as doable.
On a day when Pogačar went on the rampage on a number of events, repeatedly stringing out the sphere, and making an attempt to drop his rivals, Vingegaard recognised to reporters that it might have been supreme for him, too, to collaborate with Pogačar to take extra time on their joint rivals Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Both Evenepoel and Roglič had been distanced when Vingegaard bridged throughout – with some help from Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte – to one in every of Pogačar’s most ferocious assaults. On different events, it was simply Roglič who was dropped.
But regardless of the mixture of riders forward, one factor stayed fixed: Vingegaard was by no means prepared to assist Pogačar, opting as an alternative to attempt to defuse any try and blow the race aside.
“He was driving so quick himself, we didn’t give it some thought,” Vingegaard informed reporters later. “But in every kind of conditions, we thought it was higher for us to have extra teammates in case one thing occurred.”
“So, in fact, not directly, it might have been higher to journey as a result of Primož and Remco weren’t there. But however, our aim was to not lose time, so possibly it was higher to attend.”
Vingegaard’s extra cautious strategy was maybe justified by his rollercoaster experiences on the gravel roads round Troyes. Not solely did he need to spend almost 100 kilometres on a teammate’s bike and deal with a continuous avalanche of Pogačar assaults, Vingegaard additionally had two punctures within the stage, which doubtless acted as additional reminders of the knowledge of not being overly remoted, as might have occurred had he labored with the Slovenian.
“I’m, in fact, very relieved that I made it safely to the end with out shedding any time and solely two punctures,” Vingegaard stated in what seemed to be a humorous reference to his a number of mishaps.
“I had one after I obtained onto Jan’s bike, and truly, it occurred once more within the final three kilometres. That was solely half a puncture, however I might nonetheless end on the identical bike.
“So I owe all my teammates an enormous massive thanks, they usually did tremendous nicely immediately. Jan gave me the bike; it was an ideal match, and the remainder of the fellows stored me within the entrance. I entered each sector in first place they usually even closed the hole for me one time after I couldn’t observe. So, I owe them massive time after one.”
The dependence on Jorgenson and Laporte to deliver him again as much as Pogačar some 30 kilometres from the road in all probability made it much more unlikely for Visma to alter their minds about how dangerous it might be to work with the Slovenian. But as Vingegaard defined, too, their presence helped compensate for one main chink in his armour when it got here to racing over gravel: his weight, in comparison with that of his arch-rival.
Asked who was the strongest on the gravel, Vingegaard – whom Vingegaard implied was extra flippantly constructed – stated unhesitatingly, “Tadej was. [But] additionally it [the gravel] favours him additionally greater than favours me, specifically when the gravel was looser.”
“For a man of my weight, it’s [looser gravel] isn’t beneficial, and that was additionally when he obtained a small hole on me; it was in all probability the worst sector of all. It was so unfastened that I used to be simply sliding round, to be sincere. It was actually onerous for me to regulate the bike.”
Yet for all Vingegaard underlined his opposition to the inclusion of gravel phases on Grand Tours, branding them as ‘pointless’, and for all it had clearly been a really fraught day of racing, he reached the crew bus wanting relaxed and with a smile on his face, one reporter identified.
“I believe possibly after the crash,” – in Itzulia Basque Country in April, the place he was badly injured he couldn’t race till the Tour de France – “ I realised what life was about,” VIngegaard defined, “And it’s extra about household and residing life reasonably than biking, so possibly in that method I really feel much less strain, and I take pleasure in it extra.”
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