ANALYSIS | Dismantling the theory that Jonas Vingegaard can do better in the third week of the Tour de France
CyclingThursday, 04 July 2024 at 10:29
Jonas Vingegaard said yesterday at the finish line that everything was going "according to plan". In fact, that everything was going better than plan, as he had calculated to lose about two minutes in the first stages and after two attacks by Tadej Pogacar he is "only" 50 seconds behind the Slovenian in the overall Tour de France.
An analysed by CiclismoAlDia's Juan Larra; the Dane, we imagine that with the data from the Visma - Lease a Bike Control Room reminiscent of Devon and Bonnie's control truck in the Fantastic Car, said he expected to start the race badly and pick up the pace week by week.
Yesterday we saw him suffer a lot. He gave everything to lose as little as possible to Pogacar at the end of the Galibier and then had no strength to pedal on the descent, so he was caught by Carlos Rodriguez, Remco Evenepoel and company and arrived at the finish completely empty. On Friday he will have another test of fire in an individual time trial of 25 kilometers in which, as it seems, Tadej should continue to take time off the man who has beaten him the last 2 Tours.
Christian Josimar, analyst of our colleagues at El Contraanálisis, is not sure that Jonas Vingegaard will improve during the Tour, at least not compared to Pogacar, and he uses the Slovenian as an example:
"I'm reading out there that Jonas is going to pick up form during the Tour, do you think that's possible for someone who comes in with no depth? I go by the facts: we saw Tadej blow up a year ago in the third week, we didn't see him go 'in crescendo`."
Last year Tadej Pogacar crashed in Liège and came very short of form to the Tour. Despite this, he held his own in the early stages and fell apart at the end. We'll see what happens in this Grande Boucle. We don't want to go against Visma's data, but it's strange to think that a guy who arrives without proper preparation to a grand tour can improve in the third week... but with Visma and Jonas nothing is out of the question.
We will also have to see how the Giro d'Italia affects Tadej and if his performance drops in the last week. We will discover everything day by day in a Tour de France that is being exciting and looks set to be so until the end;
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I don't think Jonas will improve, as such, I just don't think his performance will go downhill much as the weeks go by. I do think Tadej will be impacted though as always.
Jonas is a week 3 freak and has always been one. His performances in the 2020 Vuelta at the end of the GT convinced Visma to mould him into a GT rider. His performance level barely drops at all over 3 weeks as exhaustion starts to affect everyone else.
Will it be the same this year? I don't know. It is very possible his ruined preparation will affect this, but it is also possible that it has not, and we will start seeing a difference in the 2nd half of the Tour. It will be exciting.
Do cyclists actually improve their forms as GT progresses? If that's the case, then riding Giro should make Tadej stronger for the Tour. Heck, why not ride 3 GT in a year and peak at Vuelta? Isn't it the matter whoever tires least during the 3rd week trumps over others?