"Maybe they'll play all or nothing" - Christophe Vandegoor on Jonas Vingegaard and Visma

Team Visma | Lease a Bike have for the first time hit the front and raced the Tour de France aggressively on stage 15. The hardest stage of the race, they had a tactic that had been sktetched out for months and prepared their riders for an assault in the Pyrenees. At the end of the day Jonas Vingegaard lost over a minute on the road, but with over 7 minutes to spare ahead João Almeida, some believe the Dutch team will go all-out in terms of risks to win this race.

"Tadej Pogacar is extremely praised, but I think it's great what Visma-Lease a Bike has done. His pregnant wife was there, with their first child. He walks away from the press with the child in his arms and with a pair of sandals on his feet." Christophe Vandegoor comments for Sporza "While his wife was hopping along behind him, you could see Vingegaard realize: okay, I'm going to come second in the Tour, but two months ago I was still in hospital. What I have here is the most important thing."

The Dane has effectively raced his highest ever level over the weekend, but it was not enough to beat a rival who is also evolving. A second place amongst such competition and after such difficult months leading up to the race is already honorable, but the Dane has nothing to lose now when it comes to his overall classification.

He started stage 16 3:09 minutes away from Tadej Pogacar, but still has a few mountain stages left to go, including the brutal and high-altitude challenges of stage 19. But Vandegoor also believes there are reasons to already be satisfied. "That image from yesterday (stage 15, ed.) stays with me. The relativity of coming second in the Tour de France after escaping death, that's what it's all about in the end."

And the right tactic for Visma is, in his opinion, to execute stage 15's plan again and hope that fatigue may fall into the benefit of the Danish climber. "The plan they have, they will execute at Visma-Lease a Bike. In the second half of week 3 I would definitely race in the same way."

"Due to the accumulation of tough stages, the fatigue will pile up. Maybe they'll play all or nothing. Vingegaard already said at the press conference that he's not looking back. It is a credit to him that he continues to hope and that is what you have to do. You can never estimate whether Pogacar will have a weak moment or not," he concluded.