“We are not going to give up" - Visma refuse to accept defeat despite hefty time loss for Jonas Vingegaard on stage 15 of 2024 Tour de France
CyclingMonday, 15 July 2024 at 09:16
Team Visma | Lease a Bike were at the front of the peloton and riding hard throughout stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France. All this work reached a crescendo at 10km to go when Jonas Vingegaard launched his attack. Sadly, from there, things didn't quite go to plan.
“The team rode fantastically,” Team Visma | Lease a Bike's sports director, Arthur Van Dongen reflects of the stage in his a post-stage interview with Wielerflits. “We destroyed everything, except for one man. And that man is clearly stronger at the moment. It wasn’t all or nothing today. We had a clear plan, which we had had for a while. Again, they rode fantastically. Everyone cracked, except for Tadej.”
As mentioned, when Vingegaard made his move at around 10km to go, only Pogacar was able to follow. After the Maillot Jaune sat on his rival's back wheel for 5km however, Pogacar launched an attack of his own at just over 5km to go, with Vingegaard this time unable to match his great adversary. By the time the pair crossed the finish line, the difference was 1:08 in Pogacar's favour, with Vingegaard now 3:09 down in the general classification.
"We have been pushing the pace all day, you can see that in the big differences. On the final climb, men from the top 10 of the general classification were immediately thrown overboard," Van Dongen concludes, insisting that Team Visma | Lease are not yet willing to admit defeat in the fight for the Maillot Jaune despite the disappointment. “We are not going to give up, we still have a week to go. It does get harder and harder when you lose time. So we have to be realistic and see where there are opportunities. Next week, those will be the last three days.”
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They should want to stay in the fight, otherwise why be there other than some sponsor tv time?
Not a vin fan but great effort today. Puzzled why Visma frazzled whole team before last climb though
They had no other options. Only way to claw out of the deficit. Now they're even in a deeper hole.
They tried to set a hard pace all stage to tire Pogacar as they have done with success the last two years, and even Pogi admitted that he did struggle a little at the beginning of the climb and the team had to focus a lot of keeping him cool.
Jonas would have been alone anyway, I think. UAE's climbing team is just far superior.
It was great to see Visma attack today, the first time all tour, but they’re right: the one man they didn’t want there was the one man who didn’t crack. This feels like some weird combo of ‘22 and ‘23, losing Kuss to COVID (like the UAE losses in ‘22) while the team leader had injury- interrupted preparation for the Tour (Pogacar in ‘23). Let’s see what they can do in the coming days, let’s hope they can keep this going.