"The Tour is not over" - Jonas Vingegaard tips the hat but does not bow down against Tadej Pogacar

Jonas Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike had a plan for the queen stage of the Tour de France and they delivered. However, facing an opponent such as Tadej Pogacar, the plan ended up bringing no results on the Col de la Loze, where the Dane had to settle for another time loss against their rival".

"Today was a brutal day, 5 hours in the saddle. I'm not sure I've ever done such a hard stage in the Tour before, I said it before the stage but yeah this was a brutal stage," Vingegaard said in a post-race interview. The Dutch team snuck in Matteo Jorgenson in the breakaway with UAE not being able to prevent Visma's numerical superiority out front.

It was evident that Vingegaard was going to attack from afar, more specifically on the Col de Madeleine on this day, as the 4:15-minute gap was too large to close on a single ascent. Wout van Aert, Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts, Simon Yates and Sepp Kuss performed the ideal leadout up the 19-kilometer long ascent which resulted in an attack with 71 kilometers to go.

"I felt good, the team felt good, we had big plans you could see to go early. We did, unfortunately I couldn't take any time on Tadej," the two-time Tour winner laments. But nothing could be done against Pogacar, who followed his attack on the penultimate and then again on the summit finish to Col de la Loze. It was a strong day on the bike, but in the end he has lost another 11 seconds in the overall classification.

"The team did amazing today and I want to thank my teammates today again, everyone was 100% behind the plan. it gives me so much motivation when I have a team working for me like this," he assures.

The Dane was asked about why there was a standstill after the Col de la Madeleine in the valley run that ultimately led to Ben O'Connor's stage win, but the explanation was rather simple. "We didn't want to work together and then Lipowitz went up the road and we waited for our teammates, and we started working together on the Col de la Loze".

However, despite another defeat, Vingegaard refused to throw down the towel, and he will take it up to Pogacar once again on the very hard 19th stage that features a summit finish at La Plagne. "I think it looked like we were pretty equal today, he took a few seconds in the end but the Tour is not over".