Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) don’t need no stinking team.
That was the major discovery on the mountain climb of Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc.
In a carbon copy of yesterday’s stage, it was again the team of UAE Emirates isolating Vingegaard until it was only the yellow jersey and Pogacar in their usual positions behind Adam Yates.
Vingegaard was on his own and had nobody in a Jumbo-Visma jersey to turn to for help. A jackass spectator holding his phone out into the road had done the work of eliminating the Dane’s teammates.
Down went his crucial domestiques Sepp Kuss and Nathan Van Hooydonck. Kuss would remount and make it half way up Mont Blanc before fading. That was a potential disaster for Vingegaard, who was forced to take on Pogacar and company by himself.
Vingegaard matched every single attack and acceleration from his rival. Pogacar never got the smallest gap. This was a defining moment in the Tour — an event that signaled that even on his own Vingegaard would not break.
He even put in his own nasty acceleration in the final 500 meters to the finish. The two men rode in almost side by side, which they’ve been now for two weeks.
What struck us today was Vingegaard’s display of defiance and confidence. On an afternoon where his squad was hors de combat, he could and would still take the battle to the Slovenian.
We’d had our doubts about Vingegaard’s core level of stress, how he would cope with the expectations and pressure that can wear down even a champion over the course of three weeks in the Tour de France. Today, the Dane showed he is every bit as confident as Pogacar.
There was much talk about the strength of Jumbo-Visma compared to UAE in the lead-up to the Tour de France. However that assessment has proved largely inaccurate once the mountains arrived. Sepp Kuss can’t do everything and Wilco Kelderman has seemed largely ineffective.
With several Jump-Visma riders hitting the deck, it was an ideal situation for UAE Emirates, the perfect opportunity to wear down Vingegaard and put Pogacar in yellow.
It didn’t happen, not even close, because while Vingegaard is often described as quiet and understated, he’s also bad-ass. He don’t need no stinking team.
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