{"id":816060,"date":"2026-10-28T02:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816060\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T02:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:16:10","slug":"aso-have-acknowledged-that-vingegaard-is-no-longer-pogacars-number-one-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816060\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cASO have acknowledged that Vingegaard is no longer Pogacar\u2019s number one challenger\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\u201cI think it smells like ASO have acknowledged that Jonas Vingegaard is no longer Pogacar\u2019s number one challenger,\u201d Rasmussen said on Viaplay<\/a>. \u201cThey have to go in another direction. That is towards Paul Seixas<\/a> and Remco Evenepoel<\/a>.\u201dEvenepoel and Seixas enter 2027 with new status<\/p>\n

Evenepoel finished second at the 2026 Tour after Vingegaard crashed out on stage 15, while Seixas announced himself as an immediate Grand Tour contender by taking fourth on his Tour debut at just 19 years old.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard had still been second overall when his race ended with a fractured collarbone, having arrived at the Tour after winning the Giro d\u2019Italia and attempting the Giro-Tour double. Evenepoel then carried second place through to Paris, while Seixas completed a breakthrough season which later included victory at Il Lombardia.<\/p>\n

\"Jonas<\/p>\n

Vingegaard wore the Maillot Jaune early on at the 2026 Tour de France<\/p>\n

The route for 2027 offers 71 kilometres of individual time trialling, split between a 38-kilometre test from Blois to Chambord on stage seven and another 33 kilometres around Toulouse on stage 16. It is the highest Tour total against the clock since 2012.<\/p>\n

Evenepoel already underlined that strength during the 2026 Tour by winning the stage 16 time trial, while Seixas\u2019 fourth place came in his first Grand Tour.<\/p>\n

Not the route Vingegaard would have chosen<\/p>\n

The Tour has hardly abandoned the mountains. There are six mountain stages, including summit finishes on Grand Colombier, Les Saisies and the Col du Portet, with 53,450 metres of climbing across the race. But only three stages finish uphill, while two long individual time trials account for 71 kilometres of racing against the clock.<\/p>\n

Rasmussen suspects Vingegaard would have preferred that balance to look rather different. \u201cI am sure Jonas would have dreamed of one more summit finish and one fewer time trial, or perhaps a mountain time trial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard has finished on the podium in every Tour he has completed since his breakthrough in 2021, winning the race twice and repeatedly emerging as Pogacar\u2019s closest challenger.<\/p>\n

His 2026 campaign ended before he had the chance to defend that status all the way to Paris. Evenepoel finished second, Seixas fourth, and both now head towards a 2027 Tour containing more individual time trial kilometres than any edition for 15 years.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard will arrive there trying to re-establish the rivalry that defined much of the first half of the decade. Rasmussen believes ASO are already preparing for the possibility that Pogacar\u2019s next major challenger comes from elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI think it smells like ASO have acknowledged that Jonas Vingegaard is no longer Pogacar\u2019s number one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,9046,213012,112065,7133,101,8782,6549,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-816060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-michael-rasmussen","tag-paul-seixas","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816060","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=816060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}