Why Visma tried to keep Tadej Pogacar in yellow - Tour de France analysis

Every day is another instalment in the Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard duel at the Tour de France, even those days when they opt to keep their swords in their scabbards. 

After much speculation that that the punchy finale in Vire would be one for the GC men, UAE Team Emirates-XRG opted not to hunt down the breakaway, but that didn’t prevent a proxy war between Pogačar and Vingegaard breaking out in the closing kilometres. 

When Visma | Lease a Bike surged on the day’s final climbs, it was immediately clear that they were racing neither for the stage win nor to prepare the ground for a Vingegaard attack. No, they were riding to keep their rival in the yellow jersey, and the act didn’t go unnoticed. 

“In the end, Visma tried to do, I don't know what, but they went hard, so yeah, we just follow,” Pogačar said dismissively as he warmed down at the team bus afterwards having – just about – succeeded in his mission to loan the yellow jersey out to Mathieu van der Poel.

If in Spring, Pogačar and Van der Poel are the fiercest but friendliest of rivals, then in July, they occasionally find reason to be allies of circumstance. Thursday was just such a day. 

Pogačar had taken the yellow jersey from Van der Poel in the Caen time trial on Wednesday, but stage 6 was an immediate opportunity to give it back. It’s not clear if they had discussed the idea beforehand, but a mutual understanding seemed to be struck when the break – eventually – forged clear after an intense start to the day.

Once Van der Poel was safely aboard the move, UAE Team Emirates-XRG seemed more than content to grant the escapees some leeway, mindful that the Dutchman only needed 1:29 to wipe the yellow jersey duties of podium ceremony, press conference and doping control from Pogačar’s post-stage schedule.

It would be useful, too, of course, to have Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck squad on standby to help control the race on stage 7 to Mur-de-Bretagne and perhaps beyond. Everybody wins.

Enter Visma | Lease a Bike. Although Van der Poel’s advantage had at one point mushroomed out to seven minutes, the gap began to drop dramatically in the finale as the break fragmented and as the Dutchman, by his own admission, began to struggle with the heat and his own residual fatigue.

It didn’t long for word to filter back to the Visma squad in the peloton, and their black and yellow jerseys were responsible for a notable injection of pace. On the final kick to the line in Vire, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson put in long turns as they raced – counter-intuitively – to keep Pogačar in yellow in the here and now in the hope it would make it easier to take it off him further down the line.

Pogačar himself, meanwhile, was caught between the rational decision to cede yellow and the instinctive desire to prove a point against his rivals. Almost against his better judgement, he ended up winning the sprint for ninth place, but he would have been relieved to learn that he had knocked the pace off just enough to ensure Van der Poel took the yellow jersey back by a single second. 3-D chess at the Tour de France.

“Visma came on the last two kickers, just riding all out. Maybe they had info that Van der Poel was suffering in front, that he’s losing time, and maybe Visma wanted to give me [the] yellow jersey today,” Pogačar said pointedly.

Although Visma fell just short of their objective of delaying Pogačar’s dinner on Thursday night, they may well have done enough to ensure he is back in yellow as soon as the Mur-de-Bretagne finale on Friday afternoon.

And, of course, their attempts at discommoding Pogačar weren’t limited to the end of the stage. Visma were prominent in the flurry of attacking and counter-attacking that coloured the first two hours, ensuring this was anything but a transition day for the peloton.

Victor Campenaerts was a persistent early attacker, and they also put Simon Yates in what proved to the winning move, though the Giro d’Italia champion had to settle for fifth on the stage. No matter, they will hope that every little effort can help tip the scales in Vingegaard’s favour come the third week of the race, where they continue to believe - or perhaps hope - that his powers of endurance will turn the tide against a so-far superior rival.

Vingegaard, mind, has so far looked to be paying far more than Pogačar for the explosive efforts demanded by this punchy opening week. The Dane was surprisingly subdued in the Caen time trial, after all, and he lies fifth overall, 1:13 behind Pogačar. Speaking on Thursday, however, he dismissed the idea that his accelerations in Rouen on stage 4 had left him fatigued for the time trial.

“I don’t think that’s the reason, to be sure,” Vingegaard said. “I think if that was the case, then I would also have been suffering more today. Of course, we have to analyse what happened but to be honest, it’s been quite a first week.” 

That is something of an understatement. 

“When I saw first the Tour route, I thought it would be an easy first week. But to be honest it hasn’t been an easy first week,” Vingegaard said. “But hopefully it will build up more and more. I think this Tour de France will end up being a very hard one.”

For better or for worse, Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike seem determined to make it that way. There is no evidence yet that a seemingly invulnerable Pogačar will pay for it, of course. But, day in and day out, the duel continues all the same.