Vingegaard concedes unwinnable Tour de France to Pogacar - Analysis

The Tour de France isn’t formally over until the finish line in Paris, but that’s just a technicality. Like on election night, the result is usually clear long before all the votes have been counted. 

For Jonas Vingegaard, the pathway to victory at this Tour has been narrow ever since he took a sound beating from Tadej Pogačar in the Caen time trial on stage 5, and the arithmetic tilted even further against him when he was scorched off his rival’s wheel at Hautacam a week later.

The big beasts of the third week, like Mont Ventoux and the Col de la Loze, still allowed Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike to make hopeful projections that ended in overall victory, but when they failed to claw back so much as a second on Pogačar there, their race was run.

The shortened stage 19 to La Plagne marked the point where Visma formally conceded the Tour to Pogačar. Not even the tough Col du Pré could tempt them into one final tilt at unleashing chaos on Pogačar, who hasn’t looked remotely ruffled by any of their efforts to upset him since the race left Lille.

Instead, Vingegaard opted to sit on Pogačar’s wheel on the final climb to La Plagne in the hope of outsprinting him for stage victory at the summit. For once, he outkicked his rival, but to no avail – Thymen Arensman (Ineos) had already snagged stage victory by two seconds.

It’s been that kind of Tour for Vingegaard and for Visma. For three weeks, they have tried to bombard Pogačar with a little tactical invention and plenty of wholehearted endeavour – and all they have had to show for their efforts are the two meagre bonus seconds Vingegaard picked up on his rival atop La Plagne.

There are still two more stages to come this weekend, of course, but much like the late-arriving electoral votes from Alaska and Hawaii, they will have no impact on the overall narrative. This has been a landslide victory for Pogačar, even if the winning margin – currently 4:24 – will make this Tour seem like a far closer-run thing than it really was.

Twelve months ago, Pogačar won six stages – including a hat-trick in the final three days – to beat Vingegaard by 6:17, but this has arguably been an even more dominant showing from the Slovenian. It’s certainly been a more clinical one, with Pogačar choosing his moments more surgically than in 2024, when he seemed keen to bludgeon Vingegaard at every available opportunity. 

His Hautacam display likely exceeded anything he produced in 2024, but, for one reason or another, he has refrained from running up the score in the final week in the same way, even if it seemed he was keen on winning at Mont Ventoux, the Col de la Loze and La Plagne had circumstances allowed it. 

This time out, there has been no unexpected moment of weakness like at Le Lioran last year. Pogačar has never once looked troubled by any of Vingegaard’s attacks, and although he has often expressed irritation at Visma’s tactics, it’s always felt more like a stab at Mourinho-esque mind games than a genuine sign of annoyance. 

No, nothing has rattled Pogačar on this Tour, and, in that light, it’s understandable that Visma opted to cut their losses on the final mountain stage of the race rather than keep banging their heads against the same brick wall.

It was similar twelve months ago, after all, when Vingegaard and Visma clung to the hope that stage 19 over the mighty Col de la Bonette would give them a late chance to turn the tide. Midway up the pass, Vingegaard realised he didn’t have the strength to execute the planned offensive, and he radioed as much to his teammates. Game over.

On the final summit finish to the Col de la Couillole, like at La Plagne on Friday, Vingegaard’s ambitions were limited to stage victory. And at La Plagne, like on the Couillole, Vingegaard was thwarted by Pogačar, albeit in different ways. 

Last year, Pogačar followed his rival’s late attack and then kicked past him remorselessly in the final kilometre. At La Plagne, Pogačar realised that Vingegaard’s aim was to return the favour, and it’s hard not to wonder if the Slovenian’s reluctance to hunt down Arensman was due in part to the fear he might accidentally tee up Vingegaard for a stage win instead. It's never too early to start the 2026 Tour.

After the stage, Visma | Lease a Bike directeur sportif Grischa Niermann suggested that the late removal of the Col des Saisies from the route had played a part in his team’s decision to target stage victory rather than one last GC offensive at La Plagne, though one imagines they didn’t need too much persuading.

Stage 18 to the Col de la Loze had already shown their limitations in the fight against Pogačar. Neither Simon Yates (stage victory notwithstanding) nor Matteo Jorgenson have fired like anticipated on this Tour, while Sepp Kuss, though improving, is yet not back at his highs of 2023.

But in any case, this Tour was always going to be about the head-to-head between the two candidates for overall victory, and the outcome of their duel has never really been in any doubt. The Caen and Hautacam missteps apart, Vingegaard reckons he has produced some of the finest performances of his career on this Tour, but the harsh reality of the past three weeks is that his very best still hasn’t been enough to trouble this iteration of Pogačar in any serious way. 

It’s a sobering thought for Vingegaard and Visma to carry into the winter and towards 2026.