Opinion: Jonas Vingegaard spread his peacock wings on the most unexpected day

Jonas Vingegaard started as the clear favorite to win the 2023 Tour de France after his and his team Jumbo Visma's display in the previous year's Grande Boucle. Because of that and because his main rival, Tadej Pogacar, had been much more worn out than him during the spring with a much more demanding schedule and not specifically focused on preparing for the French race and because of the crash in Liège that kept him at home for a month without being able to prepare as he had originally planned.

Thus, the Tour began as expected. In the fifth stage, on the climb to Marie Blanque, Jumbo-Visma put the train to full operation and with a dry attack Jonas Vingegaard managed to take more than a minute out of Pogacar at the finish of Laruns. It seemed that the Tour would not be exciting, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Slovenian reacted the next day in Cauterets-Cambasque, taking 24 seconds from his rival and putting the swords in all the top.

With Pogacar close to Vingegaard in the overall, the next big test for both was going to be the very hard climb to the mythical Puy de Dome, where the Dane was expected to deploy those magical 20 minutes in the last 4 kilometers with ramps over 12% in which he would print his huge watts/kilo. To the surprise of those who expected superiority from the Dane, it was Tadej who attacked again and took 8 seconds off his rival.

So, in theory, we arrived at the 3 stages that could decide the overall. In the first of them, with the finish at le Grand Colombier, Pogacar again managed to leave Vingegaard behind. For the third consecutive mountain stage he took time from his rival, in this case only 4 seconds. However, neither in Morzine, nor in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc, was there any difference between the two. In fact, between those two days Vingegaard took 1 second off the Slovenian for the bonuses after the bike incident in Joux Plane.

All this left Pogacar 10 seconds behind Vingegaard after 7 mountain stages: in the first one Vingegaard took time from the Slovenian, in the next three it was Pogacar who took time from the Dane and in the last two there was a draw.

So, we went into Tuesday's decisive time trial (after the rest day) with the stakes high and Vingegaard barely able to prove that he was superior to Pogacar. That watt/kilo advantage seemed to have vanished. Analyst Christian Josimar of Sobre Ciclismo had been pointing out for some weeks on the Spanish podcast that Vingegaard was going to "spread his peacock wings" and expected him to do so on a climb like the Puy de Dome.

However, the Dane eventually spread those colorful peacock wings to prove that he is the strongest in the Tour in the time trial. He didn't need steep ramps to prove his strength. He destroyed Pogacar from the start of the time trial and in just a few kilometers on the flat and with some climbing he had taken more than half a minute off him. Then, after the Slovenian changed bikes, everything went for the worse for him and for the better for Vingegaard, who left his rival very hurt.