And on the 10th day, they duelled by press conference. The Tour de France paused for its first rest day in Orléans on Monday, but the eternal rivalry between Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) was a war of nerves as well as of legs.
Vingegaard’s decision to employ a defensive strategy on the gravel roads of Troyes on stage 9 was met afterwards with a degree of resigned frustration from Pogačar – “I expected that, honestly” – and an altogether more pointed reproach from Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), the debutant eager to disrupt the Tour’s old firm.
"Sometimes you also need the balls to race, and unfortunately maybe Jonas didn't have them today," Evenepoel said.
When Vingegaard met the press on Monday morning, he quibbled with the thrust of Evenepoel’s criticism. "It wasn't a lack of 'balls', I just rode smart," he said.
On Monday afternoon, Pogačar was asked to revisit the moment when Vingegaard declined to find common cause on the gravel with the maillot jaune and Evenepoel.
"Me and Remco were eager to go the finish and maybe fight for the stage win, we were already in the winning break," Pogačar said. "But if Jonas doesn’t contribute at all, then of course a stage win or gaining time on the other GC guys goes into the water and you’re not happy with this. But it’s just the way it is."
The men atop the overall standings all finished together in Troyes, and it was hard to shake off the sense that Vingegaard was the happiest of their number with that outcome. Given his injury-interrupted build-up, the Dane was thought to be vulnerable in the tough opening week of this Tour, but he has limited the damage to 1:15 on Pogačar across the first nine stages.
Vingegaard will surely take heart from that deficit, remembering how he outlasted Pogačar in the third week en route to victory in 2022 and 2023.
"I feel like I’m growing," he said on Monday morning, a comment that felt like a softly spoken warning. In the afternoon, Pogačar gently dismissed the relevance of Visma-Lease a Bike’s not-so-tacit belief in Vingegaard’s third-week superiority.
"Last year, they were really confident into the final and now I think they’re playing the same: they try to have this confidence for the final week, but I must say it doesn’t bother me because I’m way more confident in myself as well this year," said Pogačar, who has a 33-second buffer on Evenepoel on GC.
"I like the way the race went until now. I have the yellow jersey which feels good for me. I’ll just do my own race. Normally if everything goes smooth, I should have good legs next week and also in the final three days."
Twelve months ago, Pogačar arrived at the Tour with doubts over his condition after he broke his wrist at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. This time out, Vingegaard is the man ostensibly chasing race sharpness after his crash at Itzulia Basque Country, though Pogačar reckoned that his rival was already operating at something close to full bore on the San Luca on stage 2.
"We still beat the record on the San Luca by 20 seconds and Jomas was pretty good holding on my wheel. If you can go that fast up San Luca, your shape is pretty good," said Pogačar. "I think he’s trying to downplay it a little bit. But from my side, I don’t care, really."
Mind games
Pogačar is, by most counts, the best and most complete rider in the contemporary peloton, but there has been a caveat over the month of July, where Vingegaard has seemed to have his number, deposing him as Tour champion in 2022 and then defending the title last year. The UAE Team Emirates rider, however, rejected the notion that he had any kind of a complex about Vingegaard at this Tour. Quite the opposite, he insisted.
"No, I’m not afraid of him," Pogačar said. "I would say yesterday I was more afraid of Remco because he was really flying, but I’m not afraid of anyone. I just need to have a good day every day, like I’ve had so far.
"I think yesterday I could see Visma was afraid of me. You could see that when Remco goes or when anybody else had a gap, Jonas didn’t care, he was just caring about me and the team took a rest. When Primož was held back, then they put the team to the front to ride. If I had been on the back, then probably Jonas also would have ridden. It was just this dynamic. Jonas was focusing on me. I think he is a little bit afraid, but we will see in the climbs how it’s going to go."
The Tour’s second week brings the race through southwards through the broiling heat of central France, with a tough leg through the Massif Central to Le Lioran on Wednesday. The weekend doubleheader in the Pyrenees, with its summit finishes at Pla d’Adet and Plateau de Beille, should shed more light on this, the fourth instalment of the Pogačar-Vingegaard duel.
Until then, the phony war might well continue, even if Pogačar shrugged off its significance.
"If they’re trying to attack me mentally, they’re not succeeding," he said. "They race totally against me, but I’m now used to it. Already in the last three or four Tours, it was always the same. I’m getting used to this, so it doesn’t hurt. I have to do my own race."
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