Marc Madiot excited over Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard's Tour victorry battle: "What we need is for Vingegaard to come closer"

The Tour de France has been absolutely on fire over the past few days and it promises to continue as the race enters the Pyrenees this weekend. Now in the high mountains with long and repeated difficult efforts, Jonas Vingegaard could take the spotlight what has happened in previous years repeats itself... And Groupama-FDJ's Marc Madiot is enjoying the spectacle that the duo are delivering.

"I like what I see. What we need is for Vingegaard to come closer tomorrow, just to annoy everyone. For him to take back I don't know... 20-30 seconds, just to get the atmosphere going," Madiot said in words to Cyclism'Actu. The veteran French manager talked about his team's race, so far underwhelming, applauding the fighting spirit and team's tenacity but lamenting the lack of freedom from the peloton to allow breakaways to fight for stage wins - thus far, only stages 2 and 9 had winners from the breakaway of the day, those being rival teams' Kévin Vauquelin and Anthony Turgis.

Groupama will keep trying and most likely try to support David Gaudu's ambitions in this weekend, after the initial team leader showed great legs on the gravel stage, attacking and finishing ahead of the peloton on that day. Madiot leaves a warning however as well regarding the growing number of Covid-19 cases in the peloton, which will have every GC team on their toes as they try to avoid what could turn out to be a disastrous situation.

"There is Covid which is apparently hanging around. It will cause some teams to tighten their buttocks, even with us because it must not come into the house, it quickly becomes dangerous," he adds. "Apparently, there were guys who were changing either in the car (he is referring to Tom Pidcock and Geraint Thomas at the start of stage 12, ed.), or on the bus, it is not a good sign".