'I won't give up until Paris' - Vingegaard vows to fight Pogacar's Tour dominance
Jonas Vingegaard begins the second week of the Tour de France with a deficit of 2:42 on Tadej Pogačar, but the two-time winner has struck a defiant note about his prospects of bridging the gap to his old rival.
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The Tour resumes on stage 10 with a rugged trek to Le Lioran, where Vingegaard beat Pogačar to the line two years ago after catching him in the finale on the Col de Pertus. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider will need to tap into that same spirit on this Tour.
“I never give up and also that day I never gave up,” Vingegaard told TNT Sports before the start of stage 10. “It will be the same here in this Tour. I won’t give up until we’re in Paris.”
That 2024 victory came after Vingegaard’s Tour preparation had been disrupted by his career-threatening crash at Itzulia Basque Country the preceding April.
Although Pogačar ultimately pulled away in the Pyrenees to claim a crushing overall victory on that Tour, the Le Lioran triumph remained a key chapter in Vingegaard’s story.
“It was a special stage for me,” he said. “It was very, very nice win for me personally to win there, coming back from the crash I had and some very tough months before that. Bow we come back there… I have good memories and today is another fight there.”
It is not clear, however, how Vingegard and Visma will try to fight for the win on Tuesday given Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s dominance to this point. Vingegaard acknowledged that Pogacar’s team was likely to race aggressively again here.
“We expect the UAE to go for the stage win,” Vingegaard told TV2. “I hope I have good legs and the team has good legs, we’ll see.”
The Giro d’Italia champion was coy, however, when asked about his own strategy for the day.
“We’ll definitely do what’s best for me. Then we’ll see what happens,” he said.
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