#TDF2024 / #Média 📰 La une du journal L’Équipe du 13 juillet. "Sous le soleil, ça se tend" entre 🇩🇰 Jonas Vingegaard (TVL) et 🇸🇮 Tadej Pogacar (UAD).
Lance Armstrong fears for Tadej Pogacar before the high mountains of the Tour: "He looks stressed, distracted"
CyclingSunday, 14 July 2024 at 11:00
Lance Armstrong spoke on his podcast The Move with colleagues George Hincapie and Bradley Wiggins about what he expects from the start of the decisive phase of the Tour de France beginning with the two high mountain stages we will experience this weekend. In specific, he focused on yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar.
The controversial cyclist and his colleagues talked about how they see Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard ahead of the key days starting with Saturday's stage.
"In the Tour de France there are a handful of climbs that everyone knows about and one of them is the Tourmalet which is climbed on the stage and it's dirty and long. It's a very short stage of 152 kilometers with 4,000 meters of elevation gain," Armstrong commented.
The American is clear that Saturday's day is just the beginning of everything that comes after: "This is just the beginning of a series of terrible days, if you saw Sunday's profile, this back-to-back, these two days, guys get your popcorn ready, this is the start of the Tour, everything that has been talked about in the last few days with Pogacar and Vingegaard and the tactics we are going to find out if indeed what they were doing was realistic or smart, there is no doubt that tomorrow (today, ed.) will see some action."
About UAE Team Emirates, he regrets the loss of Juan Ayuso, although he believes they still have the team to do damage. However, he sees better Visma - Lease Bike in the last hours:
"They've lost Ayuso, who was one of those guys who healthy had to be up there, had to be among those six or seven leading riders, was one you could throw into a breakaway on the Tourmalet. Even so, they still have guys like Adam Yates in there that they can use. Visma is going to have to race, let's be honest. They did a great job today (yesterday, ed.) with Laporte and Jorgenson."
Wiggins believes in Visma
"I think we're going to see more of Visma," replied a Wiggins who thinks it's a day for Jonas Vingegaard to try. "If you're Visma's DS it's a great day to start opening the race, I think the harder the stage is a better option for Jonas, now comes the good stuff."
Hincapie, meanwhile, commented that it's crunch time for Tadej Pogacar after Tuesday's blow: "It's going to be a day when we're going to start getting some questions answered. For example if Pogacar had a problem with nutrition or if he went too much to the limit and could not recover".
Wiggins insisted that the climb "suits Jonas" better.
Pogacar "stressed"
Tadej Pogacar is receiving both the yellow jersey and the mountains jersey on the podium in recent stages and Armstrong has identified stress on the Slovenian on the podium since Vingegaard stole the stage from him in Le Lioran:
!At the podium ceremony when he received the mountain jersey, he looked stressed, I don't know what it was, but he looked stressed, distracted".
Wiggins put the kibosh: "He had the hardest day the other day, he has to go twice to the podium every day for the two jerseys, you have to imagine all the questions you ask yourself now that the mountains are coming. Like if Jonas is going to be stronger than you, the focus on him is usually on how good he is and now they are different and Jonas is having an easy few days, he won the stage the other day and he is back calm, the question now is if Jonas is going to win the Tour."
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