"It is due to a considerable weight difference between Vingegaard and Pogacar" - Visma DS explains Jonas Vingegaard's time loss in Galibier descent
CyclingThursday, 04 July 2024 at 10:29
Dust settled and after four stages into Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard is looking at Tadej Pogacar's bib numbers from a distance of 50 seconds. But as we have witnessed it in the past, we should only count the eggs in our basket after the time trial in Nice as only there the overall standings will be definitive.
The Dane was only some eight seconds behind his Slovenian counterpart on top of Col du Galibier, however he lost another 30 seconds in the subsequent descent to Valloire. Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Arthur van Dongen explains why that happened in an interview with WielerFlits.
Van Dongen believes Vingegaard wasn't lacking in terms of technical skills or risk-taking. Apparently the answer is much simpler than that. "It is due to a considerable weight difference between Vingegaard and Pogacar," he says. Pogacar is listed at 66kg while Vingegaard only 60kg. Were the few extra kilograms the sole reason for Vingegaard to lose a considerable amount of time?
There's more to it, the Visma DS realizes. "Pogacar is also just a bit more explosive. After a sharp hairpin bend, he can immediately, boom, accelerate at full speed. Mathieu van der Poel can do that too. Vingegaard loses out there. It's as simple as that."
Despite the time loss and a provisional third place in the general classification, the team continues to radiate confidence. They are not shocked by the time loss. Main sports director team leader Grischa Niermann hinted that they expected even bigger difference.
The first mountain stage confirmed what many already thought. UAE Team Emirates is by far the strongest lineup (not only) in the mountains at the moment. Not even by the riders of Visma | Lease a Bike, who were able to control the previous editions can't do much about this dominance.
On the flanks of the Galibier, the consequences of multiple setbacks throughout this season accumulated and Vingegaard was quickly isolated against the strong UAE. The biggest loss is the absence of Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss who couldn't start after he fell ill just ahead of the Grand Départ. "Sepp had always ridden with those last eight riders. We miss him of course. And he is irreplaceable," according to Van Dongen.
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- “And now, Visma try to take on a task that no team has ever been able to achieve before: Beat Tadej Pogacar at the Tour de France.” Odd sentence considering the fact that Visma has already beaten Pogacar twice at the Tour de France 🤔 Care to explain?Phil9804-06-2025
- Even if he's on the form of his life, João Almeida's not going to be a Tour de France contender when Tadej Pogacar is on the same team.
santiagobenites04-06-2025 - Totally agreed. He should escape UAE’s golden handcuffs. In many other teams he would be the outright leader.mobk04-06-2025
- 14 wins in 4.5 years is not exactly nothing! Plus some pretty prestigious podiums. All at the age of 22. Kid needs to get some maturity, but talent is not missing.mobk04-06-2025
- If he can match his form of the 2023 Tour he will have a chance, the problem is he's 28 now and Tadej will always be two years his junior. Jonas will come strong though for sure.awp04-06-2025
- Can't take to Ayuso despite him being my Giro tip. There's just something I can't pinpoint about the way he rides or his demeanour or his work rate for the team that I don't get. The perception on marginalisation is possible but how much is of his own doing. If he's not content he should waive his big contract and find some peace somewhere elseslappers6604-06-2025
- MR - I'm not taking issue with the details just the overall factors involved 👍
leedorney04-06-2025 - He certainly likes to be numero unos - verbally 😁leedorney04-06-2025
- The problem with Ayuso is he shouts for leadership yet the only thing performing is his mouth...leedorney04-06-2025
- Why do either of them have to "prove" anything?? We know Tadej will retire as the GOAT but Remco and Jonas have their chances too. I don't see either dethroning Tadej, he'll come into the next few weeks as ready as he'll ever be to win the Tour, it'll take something mind blowing or illegal to beat him.slappers6604-06-2025
Yea, robbish. Remember how Jonas destroyed Tadej in the descent stage 16, time trial. Come on!
I suppose you need to keep the moral up and say something. However is that really a plausible excuse as Pog did go uphill faster too!
Well, Visma admits that he could accelerate out of hairpin corners like he did on the climb and how he won the 10 seconds on Jonas on the climb. But weight does play a part in descending in non-technical descents. It's gravity. A heavier object drops faster.
What. No. Heavier object does not fall faster. Every thing accelerate at the same rate. Imagine you got two bowling ball of same mass. You drop them, they would fall at same rate. Now you tape them together, do you think they would now fall faster? They are joined, so they have twice the mass now. But no they will fall the same rate. That's one of the earliest thing you would learn in physics. What make something fall faster is it drag, less drag = faster but otherwise mass have no effect.
Jonas simply couldn't pedal as fast as Pogacar on the straight part of the descend. The gravity hypothesis doesn't concur with the reality.
Pidcock is also explosive though so can kick well out of bends and is shorter so should have a lower cda. Having a lower cda should mean he has less aero drag on a decent. JV actually looks a better technical descender than Pog, and seemed to close the gap in more technical upper sections. Pidcock is technically better than both of them. Look at Remco he lost time on the technical section and was passed by the next group, but his cda to watts ratio meant he could catch back up on the lower less technical sections and start driving that group.
Thanks for bringing up so many factors because there are. Aero, weight, etc and NERVES.
JV had a downhill crash that did serious damage to him this spring so being cautious makes sense.
Visma with even more excuses for Jonas losing time ! I guess they are the masters at deflecting and not admitting Jonas is not a match yet for Tadeg.
What I don't understand is all of this about the "strong UAE team" and how "Visma couldn't do anything about it." But what could have they done?
No matter who's on any of the team rosters, no one could have followed that acceleration except for Jonas.
So what could have the Visma team done differently? Blocked the road to prevent UAE from pulling?
Because Jonas was never in any trouble during the ascent, so he didn't really need any help.
Or what am I not getting?
Utter nonsense! Tom Pidcock is probably same weight as Jonas, and everyone knows he’s one of the fastest descenders in the pro peloton!
I just looked it up. Pidcock is even lighter at 58kg, so you are correct in saying utter nonsense. 👍
Just playing their usual mind games, the entire group behind caught him before the line, he could barely hit the pedals towards the end. Even Carlos put an arm around Jonas where he looked downbeat and puffin hard! They just playing a hope game at this point…
Had Visma a stronger team he’d have a chance to push it later when he’s got better form but this Visma isn’t topping Redbull or the SQS this tour unfortunately ! Weak ! Sad !
Yeah, well, where was Pidcock?
Losing time like a lot of other riders are so that they can get into breaks and try for a stage win.