"Pogacar is better at the Tour of Flanders, but this is about a three-week race. Jonas is better at that" - Visma have full faith in Vingegaard ahead of 2025 Tour de France
CyclingSaturday, 31 May 2025 at 11:19
Once again, the Tour de France looks set to hold a showpiece battle between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard in 2025. Both riders have taken a very different route to the Maillot Jaune fight this year, but despite Pogacar's brilliance in the Spring, Team Visma | Lease a Bike are retaining their faith in Vingegaard.
"You could perhaps say that Pogacar is better on Tour of Flanders-like courses, but this is about a three-week race. And in our view, Jonas is better at that," Team Visma | Lease a Bike's team boss Richard Plugge insists with defiance in conversation with Wielerflits, explaining how Vingegaard is better suited than Pogacar "to be able to handle that accumulation of fatigue, etc."
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The fact remains though, that Pogacar will start the 2025 Tour de France as the pre-race favourite. The Slovenian has won each of the last two Grand Tours he's started, winning 12 stages en route, with numerous Monument victories and even a Rainbow Jersey victory also being secured over the last couple of seasons for the Slovenian. Even with this though, Plugge has a response, pointing towards mitigating circumstances at the 2024 Tour de France.
"Due to circumstances, Jonas was simply less in the final week last year," Plugge recalls, noting the aftereffects of a nasty crash at the Itzulia Basque Country that had interrupted Vingegaard's preparation for the Tour last year.
"I do think that UAE Team Emirates-XRG has made progress after the time trial to Combloux in the 2023 Tour. But so have we. And we are mainly looking at ourselves and how we can improve our performance. Compared to last year, we have taken another big step in that regard," Plugge concludes. "Jonas has gained minutes on Pogacar for two years in a row. Last year, after a very flawed start and a pretty bad finish, physically, Jonas was also a big competitor towards the end. Jonas has also made progress again. I have no reason not to believe that we can go for yellow again."
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- Not sure this type of show will always be looked on positivelyMistermaumau06-06-2025
- Strategy? What strategy? They had less than Viable had at the Vuelta Kuss won. When you read management trying to offload blame with turns like « we tried to encourage him » (IDT) to watch Yates, you have to ask, is anyone directing anything? How about TELLING him?Mistermaumau06-06-2025
- They don’t half come up with some crap to turn events into stories. Problem is, if all this was true and so influential, that means 1. Riders are lacking inherent motivation and possibilities for motivation, 2. it’s due to race radio chatter he won and 3. They were lucky no attention was given and race radio didn’t mention him. In fact you are basically admitting outside influence skewed the race and if it works, this technique might get exploited commercially in future by corrupt or biased staff, rivals and officials. So c’mon guys, let’s stay a little factual coz otherwise you’re only going to shoot yourselves in the feet.Mistermaumau06-06-2025
- Maybe Ayuso will ride Tour de France coming July to help Pogi better than Adam Yates. We don't know what Gianetti and Matxin going on their minds.
James2631806-06-2025 - Glad it worked for Yates, I don't believe for 1 second that UAE would conduct themselves like so with Pog. #noway
leedorney06-06-2025 - He'd won the Giro after all. That should put him as the strongest rider by itself. His rivals couldn't match him on the Finestre. Superior team tactics, but also superior legs by no means. He didn't even miss a doping test. Believe it or notBM06-06-2025
- Solid worker this guy 💪leedorney06-06-2025
- One of the amazing things about cycling is how many races are happening at the same time. Stage, GC, and (as is clear here) job. It’s what makes the sport so interesting. On screen maybe not much is happening, but and yet so much is happening.RidesHills06-06-2025
- In contract year, i would say that if team duties permit, you are allowed to market yourself.abstractengineer06-06-2025
- Now its not a good team for talent development and opportunities. With Tadej hogging the GTs and the Monuments and the rest left fighting for scraps, there is very little chance for leadership roles which are critical in development of future greatsabstractengineer06-06-2025
Everyone knows that Pog i s taking a risk by focusing on training exclusively for the Tour for only a few weeks instead of all year round, as Jonas does. But Plugge could easily mention this as simply a choice that Pog has made, which has been accepted up to now. Instead, he changes the narrative to insist that the real truth is Jonas is naturally better able to handle accumulated fatigue than Pog is. More psychological warfare than marketing.
It’s not necessarily a risk performance-wise, every riders improves best in his way of training, probably if Pog prepared Vingo’s way or Vingo prepared Pog’s way they’d both get beating by Remco ;-) Of course, if you were talking of crash or injury risk you’d be right, except that so far, Pog has gotten away relatively lightly in comparison.