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ANALYSIS | The three scenarios in which Tadej Pogacar could lose the Tour de France to Jonas Vingegaard
CyclingTuesday, 16 July 2024 at 13:45
Tadej Pogacar has beaten Jonas Vingegaard in the three high mountain stages of the Tour de France so far (Col du Galiber, Pla d'Adet and Plateau de Beille). He has not been able to beat Jonas Vingegaard in the hilly days but at the time being it his his race to lose. We take a look at what it would take to, under normal circumstances, Pogacar be put into difficulties and lose the yellow jersey.
Before the start of the Grande Boucle the opposite was said, as analyzed by CiclismoAlDia's Juan Larra. That it was in the hilly stages with not so hard climbs that Pogacar would surely be able to beat with Vingegaard due to his explosiveness, but this is not the case: the Slovenian was beaten by the Dane in his own terrain.
Team Visma | Lease a Bike has been saying since the start of the Tour that they expect Vingegaard to be at his best in the final week, but this didn't end up being the case as the defending champion had great performances right from the opening days of the race.
But after stage 16, it seems very complicated that the UAE Team Emirates rider could lose 3 minutes of advantage. We can only think of three reasons why this could happen:
1. COVID
There are already many riders who have been infected and have had to abandon the race sick, one of them Pogacar's teammate in UAE Team Emirates Juan Ayuso. Pogacar did get infected a few weeks prior to the race, which could be helpful if he is to suffer from it. Coincidentally, this morning two of Pogacar's teammates travelled to the stage start in separate vehicles, with Covid in the team possible being present once again.
2. A CRASH
The other reason would also have to do with a possible withdrawal or a big time loss caused by a crash, either on a descent as happened to Vingegaard at Itzulia Basque Country or in a stage finish before a sprint as happened to Primoz Roglic in this same race. Pogi knows how to move very well in the peloton, but you never know when luck might finish.
3. VISMA'S CALCULATIONS AND THE GIRO D'ITALIA
The two causes already mentioned had to do with bad luck, but not this last one. According to the calculations made by Visma (at least that is what they have been saying publicly), Jonas will be improving his performance during the race (we have already said that we do not believe that this can happen), so he would reach his peak in this third week. This could be seen as his performance on Plateau de Beille was incredible, but Pogacar's was even better.
This is coupled with the fact that Tadej Pogacar has raced the Giro d'Italia, so it would be normal that his performance would also drop in this third week. There are still four stages in which you can get a lot of time: Superdévoluy on Wednesday, Isola 2000 on Friday, the Col de la Couillole on Saturday and the Monaco-Nice time trial on Sunday. Plenty of terrain to make a difference in reality, a lot of race still remains.
If Visma's calculations regarding Jonas are correct and Pogi ends up suffering from the Giro, will they be able to surprise and take a third consecutive Grand Boucle victory?
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024