{"id":26718,"date":"2025-07-27T07:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26718\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T07:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:08:10","slug":"hopefully-pogacar-doesnt-go-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26718\/","title":{"rendered":"Hopefully Pogacar doesn\u2019t go for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visma <\/a>| Lease a Bike has been eager to secure its second stage victory in the Tour de France<\/a> for several days now. The 20th<\/a> stage to Pontarlier seemed tailor-made for Wout van Aert<\/a>, but the Belgian missed the breakaway and was unable to close the gap with a late attack. Now all eyes are on Sunday, when he would love to win again on the Champs-Elys\u00e9es.After the finish, Van Aert spoke to Sporza<\/a>, indicating that he was not in top form on the day. \u201cIt was another tough start,\u201d said the Belgian. \u201cIt took a long time for the right breakaway to form. In the first part of the race, I didn’t have the legs I hoped for. I tried, but I wasn’t fast enough to stay with them.\u201d In the end, Matteo Jorgenson did manage to stay with the group at the front.<\/p>\n

With 60 kilometers to go, Van Aert made another attempt to close the gap. \u201cWe weren’t far behind on the steep climb, and I knew the race would explode again,\u201d he explained. \u201cI joined a nice group, but we were riding in no man’s land because there were more riders with teammates at the front than riders who wanted to make the jump.\u201d The breakaway was unsuccessful, and he rejoined the peloton safely.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"wout-van-aert\"\/Van Aert wants to win on Champs-Elys\u00e9es: “Hopefully Pogacar doesn\u2019t go for it”<\/p>\n

That was not the case for everyone in the peloton. There was still a fierce battle for the top spots, and there was even a crash in the last kilometer. “It’s strange that they still take so many risks for a top spot, but it is the biggest race in the world. You have to expect that, and there shouldn’t have been corners in the last 500 meters. The organization is falling short again.”<\/p>\n

No victory in Pontarlier, but what about Paris<\/a>? Van Aert is ready for action. \u201cI’m going to give it another try tomorrow. I’m now much more motivated than I was before. I’ve mingled in a bunch sprint a few times. That worked once, but otherwise, they were easy sprints. Now, with Montmartre, it’s more of a classic, although it will be a short, explosive race. But it’s something that suits me.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the addition of the climb to Montmartre, it is now also a stage that suits yellow jersey wearer Tadej Pogacar. \u201cI hope Pogacar doesn’t go for it, although that’s for personal reasons. To be honest, he doesn’t look very motivated anymore. That said, a lot will depend on the weather,\u201d Van Aert thinks out loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visma | Lease a Bike has been eager to secure its second stage victory in the Tour de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-26718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}