Jonas Vingegaard remains adamant that he is still in with a chance of beating Tour de France leader Tadej Pogačar despite losing a further nine seconds to the UAE Team Emirates-XRG racer in the closing metres of the brutally difficult Col de la Loze ascent on stage 18 on Thursday.
Unlike in 2023, where the Visma-Lease a Bike leader was able both to drop Pogačar on the 26.5-kilometre climb and effectively claim overall victory in the Tour in the process, this time Vingegaard had no choice but to watch Pogačar ride away from him close to the finish.
The defeat, if minor time-wise, surely stung more deeply given Vingegaard and his team had ripped the race apart on the Col de la Madeleine, leaving Pogačar isolated in a tiny race leader’s group by the summit.
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However, a general regrouping then followed at the foot of the Loze, and while Vingegaard launched two attacks on the Loze, Pogačar had no problems shadowing the Dane, and then dropping him in the finale.
Vingegaard had nothing but praise for his team’s collective efforts to sink Pogačar. But even if, at best – for now – he can only draw equal with the Slovenian on the Tour’s climbs this year and there is now only one major mountain stage left before Paris, the Dane remains convinced he is able to topple the maillot jaune.
“Today was a brutal day, five hours in the saddle, I’m not sure I had ever done such a hard day in the Tour before, I said it before the stage, but this was a brutal stage,” Vingegaard commented afterwards at the summit.
“I felt good, the team felt good, we had big plans – obviously, you could see that we tried to go early, and we did. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take time on Tadej.”
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Visma-Lease a Bike did exactly as Pogačar had predicted after stage 17 and placed a rider in the early break, with Matteo Jorgenson making it into a 13-rider move on the Glandon. But it was on the Madeleine, the second Hors Categorie of three on the day, that Visma-Lease a Bike really turned on the power.
After a timid drive by Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Vingegaard’s teammate Tiesj Benoot was the first to accelerate hard in the yellow jersey group, followed by Victor Campenaerts and Simon Yates. However, it was Sepp Kuss’ driving attack close to the summit that reduced the leader’s group to just the American, Vingegaard, Pogačar and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
In what was possibly his most effective attack of the day, Vingegaard himself attacked in person, bringing the leader’s group across the remnants of the leader’s group, where Jorgenson threw himself into the fray across the summit for his leader and produced an equally impressive, full-speed descent off the Madeleine.
“The team did amazing today, I want to thank them again, everybody was 100% behind the plan,” Vingegaaard commented at the line. “It gives me so much motivation when I have a team like this working for me.”
However, things seemed to go askew on the crunch climb of the day, the Col de la Loze, as there was a major moment of hesitation after stage winner Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla) broke away, followed by Jorgenson and Einer Rubio (Movistar) and then, at a distance, Lipowitz.
As the pace in the yellow jersey group eased notably, Vingegaard denied that there was any deliberate agreement between the rivals to slow. “No, we didn’t want to work together,” he explained. “Lipowitz went up the road, we waited for our teammates, and then started pacing up the Col de la Loze.”
The lack of collaboration and decision to let chase groups regain contact caused a notable swing in the stage’s momentum, though, from Vingegaard and Visma making the running back to UAE Team Emirates. Pogačar’s squad were more than able to control the yellow jersey group for much of the final ascent, first with Marc Soller, then Jonathan Narvaéz, and finally Adam Yates.
By the time Vingegaard opted to try for an attack close to the summit, his move was easily countered by Pogačar and in the closing metres, the Dane was even distanced a little by the leader. After all the fireworks of the Ventoux, then, with Visma and Vingegaard putting Pogačar under considerable pressure but not cracking him, on the next major summit finish, the Tour seems to have swung back in the Slovenian’s favour.
That said, Vingegaard is still certain there is margin for him to turn the tables on Pogačar, even if the end of the Tour is fast approaching and now there is only one major Alpine stage remaining.
“I think we looked pretty equal,” Vingegaard insisted to reporters before heading back down through the mist and fog of La Loze to his team hotel. “He took a few seconds, but the Tour is not over.” Still? One journalist asked him, to which Vingegaard repeated equally determinedly. “Still.”
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