Vingegaard and his aggro Dauphiné defense

Jonas Vingegaard has a funny idea about riding defensively.

After his dominant smack down on stage 5 of the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Dane said “I didn’t want to attack today. I just wanted to defend myself.” So what “defend” means is blow everyone in the race off your wheel.

After that performance, Vingegaard stated that he’d be riding defensively for the rest of the race. No need to attack, no need to turn a pedal in anger. He already taken over a minute over GC rivals Ben O’Connor (AG2R Citroën) and 1:26 over Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates).

So no need for fireworks, no need to get all aggro. Just follow the wheels and let his competitors try to make up time. However, it appears once again that Vingegaard has a flexible definition of defensive riding. In his book, it means crushing your rivals, tearing legs off and shattering their hopes.

So it was on today’s queen stage that featured a fearsome threesome of mountain climbs: the Col de la Madeleine (25.1km at 6.2%), the Col du Mollard (18.5km at 5.8%) and finally, a summit finish on the Col de la Croix de Fer (13.1km at 6.2%). All Vingegaard had to do was sit behind his rivals, stay watchful, let them burn the matches.

That was all fine and good till the Croix de Fer. Vingegaard had teammates Tiesj Benoot and Atilla Valter setting a hard tempo and controlling the front of the race. Nothing crazy, nothing overly aggressive, just keeping things in order.

It’s just that Mr. Defense couldn’t help himself. With 5 kilometers to go, when everyone was on the limit, he had to … attack! His first acceleration wiped out everyone but Adam Yates and then even the British rider ran out of watts. Pop, pop, pop. All gone.

From then on the drama was for first and second on the final podium. Yates gaining back time on Ben O’Connor and the Australian trying to limit the damage. Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) rode strongly to move himself into fourth and closer to an invitation to the final champagne party.

Yates would finish 43 seconds behind Vingegaard and move into second place. That’s a terrific result but he’s a whopping 2:11 behind with one day to go. He admitted post-stage that “it’s hard to follow” when Vingegaard attacks.

Which is crazy, right? Because all Jonas Vingegaard is doing in riding defensively.