If a single image could sum up the radically different directions of travel for the 2024 Tour de France’s two top GC contenders right now, you could do worse than the moment when Jonas Vingegaard finally emerged from the anti-doping truck at the stage 15 finish line and began fielding questions about his second straight Pyrenean defeat by Tadej Pogačar.
As Vingegaard pedalled gently to a halt in the middle of a sea of microphones and TV cameras for his on-bike interview, Pogačar himself appeared on the finish line following his post-stage media duties. The Tour de France leader then rode smoothly and largely un-noticed past the backs of the cloud of reporters surrounding Vingegaard - resplendent in his yellow jersey, accompanied only by his press officer and with six days racing still left, en route for an appropriately low-key celebration of his latest victory.
For Pogačar, after dropping Vingegaard five kilometres from the finish line at Plateau de Beille to take a 68-second advantage, things could hardly be more straightforward at this point in the race, given he now has a lead of over three minutes on GC on the Dane. But if a third Tour de France victory for Pogačar looks considerably more certain than it did 24 hours ago, Vingegaard and the Visma-Lease A Bike team will surely spend much of the Tour’s rest day back at the drawing board, trying to figure out the implications of this latest defeat.
Probably the key point the Dane made to reporters on the finish line post stage 15 was that he is certainly not throwing in the towel in his GC battle. On the contrary, Vingegaard felt that he might still yet manage to win the 2024 Tour, for all that he was definitely on the back foot, time-wise, at this point in the race.
“Actually I’m proud of how I rode and how the team rode, the guys rode really strongly and we rode super hard,” Vingegaard said.
“On the last climb I was feeling super strong, I think I did one of the best performances of my life. But Tadej was super strong - so I cannot really be disappointed.”
“I think there is still a chance [to win the Tour]. The Tour de France is still not finished and sometimes in the past two years, Tadej has had a bad day. We have to hope that can still happen.”
“If he keeps up this level it’ll be hard, but there are still chances. I’m not disappointed, I think this was one of the best performances of my life.”
Visma-Lease A Bike management were equally adamant that this was far from being the end of the road for Vingegaard to fight for a third straight Tour de France victory, although they recognised, too, that they had suffered a serious setback. The one plus side was that Vingegaard further buttressed his place on the podium by taking nearly two minutes on Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep). But at the same time, his chance of a yellow jersey has now slipped significantly further out of his reach.
“This is not the knock-out blow,” Visma sports director Grischa Niermann told reporters as he waited at the team car on the far side of the finish. “Jonas is still in second place. We can keep fighting, with our heads held high.”
“A lot can still happen,” he insisted, “We’ll never surrender before the end. But at this point in time all we can do is accept that Pogačar is just too strong.”
If the outcome of a Pogačar victory was identical to stage 14, the build-up could not have been more different. Vingegaard had emphasised before the stage that the much, longer, tougher stage, with nearly 5,000 metres of climbing was more in his favour. So rather than UAE laying down a searing pace on the final ascent like at Pla d’Adet, this time around it was Visma-Lease A Bike making the running, all the way to the point when Vingegaard attacked.
“The guys gave it their all. They followed the plan from start to finish. We have to be happy with that,” Niermann said, echoing Vingegaard’s words. “We wanted to make the race very hard and quickly bring it down to a one-to-one fight on the final climb. That’s what we did. But it didn’t work.”
Niermann also confirmed what Vingegaard had said about his ascent of Plateau de Beille being one of the best climbing performances of his career. But the key difference was that if Vingegaard was at his best, or close to it, particularly after coming back from such a tough accident and long spell of recovery, in the meantime in his view, Pogačar had stepped up a level.
“We did our best and Jonas returns from injury, he is in great shape and just does an excellent job. [Vingegaard's] numbers are good, close or even better than last year, I don’t know exactly. But Pogačar is better [than last year], it seems.”
As for the million-dollar question, about whether another plan can now emerge for trying to beat Pogačar, just like Vingegaard, Niermann remained defiant, but realistic about the Dane's options. “We will have to see,” he said. “But if he [Pogačar] keeps riding like this, it will be very hard.”
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the Tour de France - including breaking news and analysis reported by our journalists on the ground from every stage of the race as it happens and more. Find out more.
