the stage to Carcassonne on Sunday<\/a>, during which the double Tour champion was deserted by some of his teammates just when he needed them most, the task of overthrowing Pogacar looks doubly daunting.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have to try to do something,\u201d he said, and insisted that he was willing to risk everything to win. \u201cThere needs to be a weakness somewhere on Tadej\u2019s part. For now, we haven\u2019t found it, but we\u2019ll keep trying. I\u2019m willing to sacrifice second place to go for first.\u201d<\/p>\n
If he is to achieve an unlikely coup, he will need more convincing support that he has received to date. The debacle on Sunday, during which Vingegaard was chasing back after a crash while others in his team drove the pace at the front, prompted much soul\u2011searching in Denmark.<\/p>\n
Bjarne Riis, the first Dane to win the Tour in 1996, who subsequently confessed to doping, blasted Vingegaard\u2019s teammates when speaking to the Danish newspaper BT. \u201cTheir racing style is completely hopeless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand it at all. After Sunday\u2019s stage, you have to wonder whether Jonas should look for another team. They clearly don\u2019t see him as a priority. That\u2019s disappointing to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Echoing comments made by Vingegaard\u2019s wife, and personal manager, Trine Vingegaard Hansen, before the Tour began, Riis said: \u201cWout Van Aert is clearly more interested in riding his own Tour than in helping Vingegaard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe management has promised Van Aert that he can do what he wants, and that is going to cause conflicts. Give Jonas some respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tadej Pogacar smiles as he crosses the finish line after stage 15. Photograph: Luca Betinni\/GodingImages\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
A relaxed Pogacar, meanwhile, was enthusing about the happy atmosphere within his own team, saying: \u201cI\u2019m really enjoying this Tour. The group that we have here, the teammates and on the bus, at dinner, breakfast, it\u2019s super nice. If I need to come to the Tour every year, I\u2019ll just come for the boys and the atmosphere and nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pogacar is confident of final victory. \u201cI mean, I have to be,\u201d he said. But he remains respectful towards his Danish rival. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure that Jonas can be confident as well, because he\u2019s in really good shape. I need to keep focused, I need to keep eating well, sleeping well, and keep this mood that we have in this group, keep up the motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be tough, but we are ready for a fight with everybody, especially with Jonas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pogacar said he felt that this year\u2019s route was designed to \u201cscare\u201d him and favour Vingegaard. \u201cWe\u2019ve been to Hautacam and we are going to Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze, where Jonas dropped me [in the past] all three times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually like all these climbs. I like Mont Ventoux, it\u2019s super iconic, and Col de la Loze is one of the hardest climbs I\u2019ve ever done in my career. I will not say that I\u2019m looking for revenge \u2013 I just want to have better legs than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonas Vingegaard may be more than four minutes behind the overall race leader Tadej Pogacar in the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-14432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}