"I'm climbing at my best level ever... I'm not going to give up without a fight" - Jonas Vingegaard insists Tadej Pogacar isn't much better at 2024 Tour de France
Cycling
Jonas Vingegaard has silenced a lot of doubters in the opening two weeks of the 2024 Tour de France. After concerns over his health and fitness following a nasty crash at the Itzulia Basque Country earlier this year, the Dane, according to the numbers at least, is performing better than ever before. One problem though, Tadej Pogacar is doing even better.
"It's true that I'm climbing at my best level ever. Yesterday anyway. But if someone is better, you have to accept that," the defending Tour de France champion and Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader assesses in his second rest day press conference. "Hopefully we can turn that around in the last week. I'm not going to give up without a fight."
With 15 stages in the legs, Vingegaard sits second in the general classification, over three minutes down on his old rival Pogacar. Are Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Vingegaard ready to risk dropping down the GC in order to potentially move up? "Remco Evenepoel is very strong. He has shown that over the past two days. But I would rather attack Tadej than look back at third place," says the Dane himself. "I still believe it can be done."
Given the fact just a few months ago Vingegaard was in intensive care with a punctured lung, even being at the start line was a feat, let alone being as competitive as he has been so far. On the second rest day however, the two-time Tour de France winner insists that the lung issues of recent months aren't bothering him at all.
"I don't think it will be a problem. I think I showed yesterday that my lungs work very well," Vingegaard concludes with confidence. "He's not much better. If I can improve a little bit in the future or even in this Tour, we'll be close."
Pogi is saying he might ride the Vuelta this year. No rider has ever won all three in one year., I don't even know if it's possible. However, I started thinking this after the Giro, what if he wins the Tour? He might go for the hardest record in all of professional cycling. This would make him the best stage racer in cycling history. Now I'm going to shut up because I don't want to jinx the Tour.
I hope he wins the Tour on Sunday and gives the Vuelta a crack. He may never get a better chance. He'd essentially be playing with house money. Nothing to lose.
Absolutely, if he ever wants to do it, now is the time assuming he wins the Tour. This years Vuelta starts with a short tt with a ton of mountains in between and ends with a slightly longer 22k tt at the end. This year they are doing Pajares, which is a brute of a climb. The cool thing is if Jonas finishes second he is almost guaranteed to race the Vuelta as well. Primoz will probably race it and maybe Remco will race it. I know some of these guys (maybe all of them) want to do the Olympics but they have plenty of time as this years Vuelta starts on August 17th. The downside is that the boys will only have slightly less than four weeks for recovery if they don't race the Olympics, so no post Tour criteriums for Pogi. I think Pogi should skip the Olympics and maybe do a few post Tour criteriums, which are largely ceremonial, then recover for the Vuelta and give it a shot. If he is able to win the Vuelta along with the Giro and the Tour it will make what Visma did last year (Taking all of the GT's with three riders) look like a bunch of amateurs. But this is a huge ask for a human being, even superb specimens likes these guys...
It's a difficult decision. He probably won't ever again have a chance to go for the treble, but on the other hand he rode 2 grand tours already and the world championship course in Zürich looks real good for him, especially in this form. Plus, this Vuelta will be really difficult, having mostly mountain stages. He could end up completely exhausted.
Nine mountain top finishes in this years Vuelta, which is about what they normally do. It will depend on the level of competition I guess. If Jonas and the other top guys aren't there he could do it, it will be hard with a high level of competition, but when we are talking about Pogi I think nothing is impossible. What GT's do to a person's body is pretty rough. But again, this is his chance. Let him get through the Tour and he can start dreaming.
What's the magic potion to recover from your injuries and compete at a higher level than you ever have before? Please do share so the whole world can benefit !
Fr! Imagine if all teams had access to all the best sciences and everything in btw! That’d be a show worth watching!!
If Vin is climbing at this level after punctured lung and 3 months off without racing . Chances are hecwould be 10 mins ahead without injuries.Sorry do not believe in fairytales . Like the days of Riis and Rasmussen .
Man, Jonas and Pog are really pushing each other to historical levels. I wouldn't be surprised if Jonas comes back next year with another big improvement, and so on, back and forth. We really are lucky to watch this rivalry over the mind numbingly boring Sky trains of yesteryear.
I know people bring up the boring Sky trains of the past, but really, who were the rivals that they had? Quintana was never going to TT well, Contador was on the tail end of his career, Dumoulin wasn’t the same kind of climber though his diesel engine was astonishingly strong. Like you say, the direct rivalry between these two makes this far more entertaining. And it’s not just them! The need for strong teams, the need for a healthy build-up — we know these have affected this Tour and the previous two as well. Having two teams able to buy a strong mountain team, that’s also a big deal.
I don't blame Sky for making it boring! Their only job was to win. But it was still boring.
I agree, one team overly dominating kills the sport. In my country the president of the cycling federation also owns a cycling team, which seems to almost be half of the power of the peleton. If this keeps on, the sport is will die soon.
If Jonas is, as he himself says, climbing at his best level ever, then that means Tadej is performing way better than in '22 and '23, his previous level that Visma-Lab is familiar with. Judging from their actual radio communication on stage 15, Visma-Lab clearly underestimated Tadej's present level, or never thought he was capable of rising to, or even surpassing Jonas' level, as far as long mountain climbing was concerned. They were so confident that Pogacar would break, as he did in '22 and '23. So they now admit that their tactic was sound, but that Tadej was just better now. But still, they are hoping that their predictions would come to fruition on week 3. I guess we will find out soon enough.
Pogacar did approx 6.98 watts/kg for 39 mins. 15 years ago, about 6 was considered the ballpark to win the Tour.
Crazy performance by both Pog and JV, BUT, this stage was kind of special circumstances. Pog had Jorgenson light it up from the bottom, at a very very fast speed, then esentially used Vingo as a domestique for another 5k, at paces no domestique can ever ride, then launched himself. Special performance but also a special setup.
Jonas has already won twice, there is no point in second. If he tries, i suspect he will still be 2nd at the minimum 3rd. So he has got nothing to lose
I love this fighting talk from Jonas! He'd rather lose 2nd place trying to fight for 1st than just settle. Before the comments start rolling in, then Jonas also praised Tadej a lot in several interviews. Remember what you see on here are cherry-picked quotes from interviews.
Hahaha. Has me wondering how after punctured lung and 3 months can he be at this level . Go figure.
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