“You have to attack, take risks and try to force the race open” - Alberto Contador urges Jonas Vingegaard to gamble in search of answers to Tadej Pogacar problem
Cycling
Alberto Contador made a career out of racing Grand Tours from the front foot. His long-range ambush at Fuente De in the 2012 Vuelta a Espana remains one of the clearest examples of what can happen when control is no longer enough and the race has to be broken open.
Before the 2026 Tour de France, his advice to Jonas Vingegaard comes from familiar ground. Tadej Pogacar starts in Barcelona as favourite for a fifth yellow jersey, but Contador believes the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader still has the profile to make the race uncomfortable for him.
“Although Pogacar has been clearly superior in virtually every race he's entered, his biggest rival is someone who already knows what it takes to win the Tour twice,” Contador told TNT Sports and Eurosport.
“Jonas Vingegaard is an exceptionally professional and meticulous rider. Everything he does is geared towards winning the Tour de France, and that alone gives him a chance," continues the Spanish icon. “I still think Pogacar is the favourite, but Vingegaard is the rider most capable of making life difficult for him.”
Contador: “You have to attack”
Pogacar’s 2026 season has pushed the debate beyond ordinary Tour favouritism. The Slovenian has already dominated across the spring and early summer, and a fifth Tour victory would move him level with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain among the race’s official five-time winners.
Contador is already prepared to go further. “I already consider him the greatest rider in history,” he said. “A fifth Tour would simply strengthen that argument even further.”
For Vingegaard, the first problem is yellow itself. If Pogacar is already leading the race, the roles change. The leader can react; the chaser has to expose himself.
“Wearing the yellow jersey gives you one significant advantage: you can afford to react to what your rivals do,” Contador said. “If you're chasing the race leader, you're the one who has to take the initiative. You have to attack, take risks and try to force the race open. That's a huge psychological difference, and it's one of the reasons why the final week is usually the most fascinating part of the Tour.”
Vingegaard’s Giro d’Italia victory confirms his level before the Tour, but it also sends him into July against a Pogacar who has looked fresher, broader and more dominant across almost every terrain. If the Dane reaches the Alps chasing yellow, waiting for Pogacar to crack may not be enough.
Contador won all three Grand Tours during his own career
Stage 15 marked as first major flashpoint
Contador also identified Stage 15 as a key point in the race. With one of the first major high-mountain tests of the Tour, he sees it as a day where the favourites could begin to draw the real lines of the yellow jersey battle.
“I think Stage 15 will be hugely important,” he said. “It features one of the first truly major high-mountain tests of the race, and I believe that's where one of the favourites could land a decisive blow."
“The rider with the greatest chance is Pogacar. Does that mean he'll definitely win? No. There are always crashes, bad days and many other factors that can change everything," he adds. “But if I had to identify one decisive moment, I'd once again point to Stage 15. I think that's where the script of the race could really begin to take shape in the Alps.”
Behind the two favourites, Contador named Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, Juan Ayuso and Paul Seixas as riders with genuine podium potential. His note on Seixas was more cautious: at 19, the Frenchman’s first Tour will be judged not only by his best days, but by how he recovers from one week to the next.
Pogacar starts with the status, the season and the fifth-yellow-jersey chase. Vingegaard starts with the Giro in his legs and, in Contador’s view, one route into the race: attack before the Tour settles fully around the man everyone else is trying to beat.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- guillaume martin is wuite a surprise as a gc rider.Ketterechts02-11-2026
- Who cares what Bruyneel thinks. He and his best mate Lance, the biggest fraud in the history of sport, have no place commenting on anything but how to lie and cheat!whit2pet02-11-2026
- Eeesh!Lozza02-11-2026
- bravo! a rider likes jonas needs motivation and he needs to believe in being able to reach goals. he - like anybody else in the world - doesn't believe that he can win the tdf with pogi present. and what's it worth for when pogi is not there? second class victory only. he has checked all three grand tours, so what is left if not retire? the classics! go for it, jonas!Ketterechts02-11-2026
- i am sure that under the pretext of medical examination a lot worse has happened when they were under.abstractengineer02-11-2026
- dude, Lemond never even was in the same race as Armstrong. He throws all these aspersions on other American riders who might usurp his throne as the greatest ever American racer. He doesn't say a single thing about (foreign) dopers who he actually raced against. Biggest douchebag move ever. I used to revere that guy, now I despise him. His actions are so weird.fatsupermodel02-11-2026
- This is just stupid, You do what you are good at not what you are weak at. He has no results to speak of when he participated. Even Froome, Conatdor had very little. With Pogi there he wont win none of the classics. he is already 30+ with a few years left at the top. It takes years to get good at classics. Is that really worth the effort???abstractengineer02-11-2026
- Sure, little fella.awp02-11-2026
- You'll be the ongoing joke of 2027 with anything you post here!frieders302-11-2026
- Awwww your inside information must be from PogiFanGirl. You two daughters of different mothers?frieders302-11-2026
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