Visma huff and puff, but UAE blow the house down – Tour de France analysis

In keeping with the tone of the 2025 Tour de France to date, Visma | Lease a Bike were again flinging riders up the road in the opening kilometres of stage 15 to Carcassonne. Indeed, their commitment to the bit was such that they kept attacking even when their leader Jonas Vingegaard was caught behind a crash in the opening kilometres.

“It was pretty chaotic in the beginning with the crash where Jonas was caught behind,” Wout van Aert admitted afterwards. “It was hard to play the right tactic because we wanted to be in the break, but we also somehow wanted to slow down so he could somehow come back in the bunch. It was a bit tricky, but the communication was good.” 

Not for the first time, Visma’s approach was a touch confused, neither fish nor fowl. Tadej Pogačar, the presumed target of this onslaught, seemed equally baffled by what was unfolding. On the one hand, he found himself slowing the peloton to allow Vingegaard et al latch back on. On the other, he found himself hunting down Matteo Jorgenson when he went on the attack.

Pogačar had reason to be vigilant. When a rider is as dominant as he is against the watch and in the mountains, it’s only normal for his rivals to seek opportunities elsewhere. After dominating in the Pyrenees, Pogačar would have been wary about the prospect of an ambush en route to Carcassonne.

It’s thirty years since ONCE realised that banging their heads against a brick wall in the mountains was not going to trouble Miguel Induráin in the slightest. Instead, they found a novel way to put pressure on the yellow jersey by relentlessly attacking on a transition stage to Mende, where only a hastily assembled alliance with other teams helped Miguelón limit the damage and ensure the Bastille Day insurrection led only to a Laurent Jalabert stage win rather than regime change.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Visma were dreaming up a similar scheme when Van Aert and Victor Campenaerts went up the road early on stage 15. Damningly, it still wasn’t clear at day’s end if that had been their intention. Such are the confused signals emanating from the Dutch squad to this point.

Their overall strategy at this Tour – trying to wear down Pogačar for the third week by making the race as hard as possible – is sound in theory but it hasn’t yet proven to be effective in practice. 

The obvious problem, of course, is that the 2024-25 iteration of Pogačar doesn’t look to be as vulnerable to attritional racing over three weeks as the version they beat in 2022 and 2023. The second issue, however, is with Visma’s own execution of the gameplan. At times, like on the road to Hautacam on stage 12, they are writing tactical cheques that their riders’ legs simply cannot cash.

That proved to be the case on the road to Carcassonne, too, even if the stage ultimately saw no frissons among the GC contenders, who were content to follow home together more than six minutes down, mindful of the arduous tests to come in the final week.

Like at Le Mont-Dore on Monday, where Simon Yates scored victory, Visma had two strongmen up the road in Van Aert and Campenaerts, but this time they had to settle for second and fourth on the stage. Scant reward considering the energy expended. 

“It was full gas all the way, and I felt pretty tired after the first two hours after pulling all the time,” Van Aert said. “Victor and I were in the front group, but we were the whole day on the tight leash, and it took a lot of effort.”

Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, meanwhile, never looked under undue pressure behind. And, to add insult to injury, they carried off the stage win to boot as Belgian champion Tim Wellens soloed clear of the break to claim an emphatic win.

Not for the first time on this Tour, Visma huffed and puffed only for UAE to blow the house down.

As the race breaks for its second and final rest day, it’s not clear what more they can do to trouble Pogačar, who has looked untouchable to this point. He put two minutes into Vingegaard at Hautacam, and although the Dane fared better on the next two days in the Pyrenees, he has yet to lay a glove on his old rival.

The terrain is there to try – Mont Ventoux, the Col de la Loze, La Plagne – but there is no indication that anything will work against this version of Pogačar, who is 4:13 ahead of Vingegaard.

“For now, Pogačar is the very, very best but of course we’ll try everyday and see what happens. For now, he’s the most complete rider,” Visma directeur sportif Frans Maassen told Daniel Benson on Sunday.

Maassen conceded, too, this was the best version of Pogačar the team had ever faced. Vingegaard produced a fine display in the Peyragudes time trial, and he was still well short of his old foe.

“Yes, I think so because the second TT from Jonas was exceptionally good but still he lost four or five seconds every kilometre,” Maassen said. “So we have to admit that Pogačar is the best.”

At this point, that looks like a problem without a solution.