Stage 17 didn't bring too much action for GC favourites as is clear that the final standings will be decided in the last three stages. Hence it was finally time for breakaway show on Wednesday. However even with stage victory out of the equation,
Tadej Pogacar still didn't miss the opportunity to make the stage harder for
Jonas Vingegaard as he attacked on the penultimate climb of the day and then sprinted away to gain two seconds on the finish line.
Speaking to
NOS,
Tom Dumoulin, wasn't particularly impressed by Pogacar's act, which he considers rather pointless wasting of energy. "This is a pure bluff, it's a mere show of strength. Pogacar is three minutes ahead, he doesn't need to do this. He does it just to annoy Vingegaard. It has something to do with arrogance," he believes.
According to the Dutch former winner of Giro d'Italia, it's more of a mental war between Pogacar and Vingegaard. The Slovenian now finally seems to have an upper hand again and prefers to have everyone know it. "Pogacar can't stand the fact that he has been beaten for two years in a row. Now he has finally returned to being the boss and has the legs to hurt Vingegaard again. His thought is: now it's all coming back to you."
With four more days of racing ahead, Tadej Pogacar has a
nice lead of 3:11 on Vingegaard. Meanwhile the third spot Remco Evenepoel was able to recover a bit of time in Superdévoluy and now stands a bit less than two minutes further from the Slovenian.
Not sure why this article popped a year after it was published. I've been saying this all of last season and all of 2025 season. Pogi has gotten arrogant. Last year was bad and this year he races with rainbow jersey so it may even be worse. I like to see that he's not had the success he wanted for 2025 tho. I was hoping that would bring him down a peg or two. One thing is certain for me tho and that's the fact that Pogi has now reached a level of arrogance and he plays nice to the cameras to make his "new" fans think he's awesome but those of us that have watched the sport for decades see right thru his act. He's fun to watch race but I've lost all interest in him after 2024 season.
I suspect they have clock syncing problems, two of the IDs have a post at an identical 24:52 (this time format already indicates one problem) on May 4th this year even though those posts don’t show in the chronology of Latest Posts, which indicates they also have time stamp and chronology problems too. The automated information on the internet (time, date, stock market figures, calculations, conversions, etc. are notoriously prone to programming errors and being overlooked. It doesn’t help that virtually no website has a dedicated no-reply link for users to report errors simply without having to navigate opaque hidden general contact addresses or menus.
He's still sour over that uphill time trial upset.
Just sort out your tummy problems, Tom. Let them race. If one can attack - let them be. I used to like you, but now you’re still full of crap, it’s coming out of your mouth.
Is he danish? lol! Pog attacked to gained time and to tire Jonas, which he did. Jonas was clearly on his limit, crack him while while you can!!!
Oh, so now you know Pog better than he knows himself? Saying that when at the same time you can see an article quoting Pog saying “sometimes I don’t know why I attack” and not ever analysing emotions as men tend to is really rather naive and reductive. Hardly worth wasting our planet’s energy and ressources for. How about elevating the discussion to think over things a bit deeper?
How inconvenient for your crushes rival to attack. He’s may be wasteful but he’s the people champion, unless you’re the fisherman’s friend.
“The people champion” ?
Pogi is extremely friendly with fans. Absolutely nothing wrong with Jonas. He's simply more of an introvert and not terribly interested in interviews. Pogi goes out of his way to interact with fans. I have a couple friends who he's caught up to on rides and Pogi took their phone and took a selfie with them before riding away.
"unless you’re the fisherman’s friend." ???