"I don’t think we could have prepared better" - Visma and Jonas Vingegaard firing all cylinders into Tour de France

Team Visma | Lease a Bike have at hand the monumental task of trying to win the Tour de France this year but to do that they have to go through Tadej Pogacar. Realistically, the Dutch team is the only one that can do it, and for that they have had Jonas Vingegaard undergo virtually the perfect preparation.

“We focus mainly on Jonas because that’s what we control, and we know what he can do and should work on. But of course, we also look above us, at Pogačar. He’s the best rider in the world right now," head of performance Mathieu Heijboer told Domestique. "He gave us a nice punch in the face again. We try to learn from him, but we cannot turn Jonas into Pogacar. We have to focus on getting the best out of Jonas and the team.”

The crash at Paris-Nice derailed his spring, causing him to miss about a month of training and the Volta a Catalunya, but aside from that he has done everything right and showed the hoped level at the Criterium du Dauphiné. “He missed doing longer climbs in Catalunya but since then we’ve done everything we wanted to do. I don’t think we could have prepared better.”

At the Dauphiné Vingegaard was second overall, coming the closest to Pogacar, even if the World Champion put in a few climbing performances that left everyone to dust. “We were very happy with how Jonas did. There was still some work to do in Tignes, of course, but I think he was even a little bit ahead of what we expected," Heijboer admits. In the queen stage to Valmeinier 1800, the differences were not as large, showing in the high mountains there is more balance between the two. 

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"Last year, we were in a hurry, he was still coping with the consequences of the crash, even mentally. The Tour was his first race after the crash, so there were a lot of insecurities. This year, those insecurities are gone. He feels comfortable in the peloton, there's no fear. His training was more controlled. We were able to work on all aspects of performance. So yeah, we’re way more confident in Jonas’ level and performance for this Tour than last year.”

This is, even though Vingegaard looked at his very best last summer despite the rocky preparation: “A lot of people made a conclusion based on Plateau de Beille because that was his best relative performance ever on a longer duration climb and his w/kg were never better. But the Tour is much more than that and performance is much more than that. And there were a lot of other things that weren’t as good as they could be. This year, everything has been more secure. We’ve been able to work on strength, explosivity, time trialling, and longer climbs. It’s a different world.”

Overall the Dutch team believe the Dane is at a very high level and is capable of winning the Tour. A lot will depend however on Pogacar and his ability to remain upright and consistent throughout the three weeks, because the World Champion's level has simply been too much for the competition over the past 12 months:

“Although we lost at the Dauphiné, it was still a battle: Pogačar didn’t take two minutes on every stage. There were positives to take, and we were confident Jonas could improve his level. We still feel confident about that, but we’re also clearly not the favourites. We’re pretty realistic about that.. The first week can be dangerous and Pogačar has improved in the heat and altitude. Still, the third week will probably decide the race.”