"Why help Tadej Pogacar get bonus seconds and the stage win?" - Visma's Dauphiné tactics questioned by American Grand Tour winner
CyclingTuesday, 10 June 2025 at 13:45
Stage 1 of the 2025 Criterium du Dauphine sparked into life with the GC favourites all coming out to play in a thrilling finale. The main instigators of this action were Team Visma | Lease a Bike, but how wise was were these tactics from the team of Jonas Vingegaard? For former Vuelta a Espana winner Chris Horner, Visma's actions were questionable.
"Do I like Jonas Vingegaard’s tactics? No," assesses Horner firmly in some post-stage analysis on his own YouTube channel. As the American points out, the biggest benefactor of Visma's attacking wasn't Vingegaard, but rather his biggest rival for the general classification. "Why help Tadej Pogacar get four bonus seconds and the stage win? It makes no sense."
"Especially when you’re dragging your own teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, out of the picture," Horner adds. "Maybe he remembers Stage 11 of last year’s Tour when he caught and beat a bonked Pogacar in the sprint — but this was not that."
Nevertheless, Horner must concede that Vingegaard looked good during the day, making some uncharacteristic attacks on the flat in the finale. "Vingegaard hasn’t raced since crashing out of Paris–Nice, where he suffered a concussion. Since then, it’s been nothing but training and altitude camps," says the American, with Horner also seeing positives from another Maillot Jaune contender, Remco Evenepoel.
"After his December crash involving the mail truck, he came back and won his first race at Itzulia Basque Country. But then his form dropped off dramatically at Flèche Wallonne, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the Tour de Romandie. I said back then he needed to take a week off — and from his own interviews, that’s exactly what he did," analyses the 53-year-old. "Now, he claims his weight is 1.5kg better than last year, and he’s already at Tour de France race weight. That’s why he’s so confident — he’s putting out Tour numbers and believes he can still improve before July."
It's Pogacar though, who clearly remains the man to beat. "He hasn’t raced since destroying everyone at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, going solo to win the biggest one-day race of the season — aside from the World Championships," Horner concludes. "So with Pogacar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel all here, it’s going to be an exciting week."
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- bummer, it was a blast watching him launch again and again. i’m hoping this is the year mathieu finally fell in love with racing the Tour.OCexile22-07-2025
- Félicitations! Fantastic overtake in the last 50 metersLobz7722-07-2025
- I have always found photographers, cameramen, reporters immediately after the finish line to be very dangerous. Multiple crashes have already happened in the pastabstractengineer22-07-2025
- Ignorance is bliss!Lobz7722-07-2025
- I don't understand what you're trying to say here. It's not his fault he got sick.
D3kst3r22-07-2025 - Beautiful stage. Mirroring the TdF so far this year.D3kst3r22-07-2025
- I think at that age, you take anything attractive you can get, you hope you can learn more from the best and you expect you can deal with things until the best retire, then the reality of relational complications catch up with you, you are up against older more experienced strategists and things don’t go as imagined, just ask anyone who’s married, in a relationship or has kids, human interactions are unpredictableMistermaumau22-07-2025
- Can you be more specific, recovery from what, pneumonia? The fatigue of having to perform at a top level more months a year than just about any other known rider? He did pretty well upping this year’s pace to make sure Tadej & Jonas have to ride at record speeds to podium.Mistermaumau22-07-2025
- How do you explain what stupid means to stupid people? It’s like writing instructions for people who can’t read. And don’t tell me there aren’t stupid people, if you don’t know any personally just follow news in any country for one week, the world is FULL. From the guy who got sucked into an MRI machine to the one who sued a train conductor for saying good morning in more than one language, it’s best to set your memory to goldfish level in order to stay calm.Mistermaumau22-07-2025
- Young riders with ambitions of GC glory should not be signing long term contracts in big teams like UAE or Visma.
santiagobenites22-07-2025
Horner is insightful about many things. But he has this weird insistence that anybody in a race with Pogacar is racing only against Pogacar. There is no podium for people who finish ahead of Pogacar or any other rider. Modern racers understand that they need to race for their (and their team's) own fortunes, and the racing is much more positive and interesting because of it.
He is also weird about 1) How he was the best domestique for Cadel 2) How he employed genius tactics against Nibali in the Vuelta 3) Only GC matters
Let’s just say he’s generally weird, the Elon of cycling :-)
Why not go out race and have some fun along the way... Horner, another anachronism of a bygone day
Yep Doper Horner still trying to maintain relevance in this current day. Mauybe he can lend some doping advice!
Move on.......
You mean Doper Chris Horner...only way he could have won that Vuelta at that age ! He's got zero credibility !