'Nothing to lose' – Visma promise to take fight to Pogacar in Alps

Jonas Vingegaard ended up losing another couple of seconds to Tadej Pogacar atop Mont Ventoux, but the Dane and his Visma | Lease a Bike squad will come away from the Giant of Provence believing they can at least make a contest of the Tour de France in its final five stages.

After a sobering defeat to Pogacar at Hautacam on stage 13, Vingegaard has managed to steady the ship, limiting his losses in the Peyragudes time trial and then breaking more or less even with the yellow jersey at Superbagnères and Mont Ventoux.

Vingegaard is still 4:15 down on Pogacar and he hasn’t succeeded in gaining so much as a second on the Slovenian since the race left Lille, but his Visma squad finally started to add up to something like the sum of its parts on stage 16 to Mont Ventoux.

Vingegaard’s team set the tempo from the foot of the Ventoux, with Sepp Kuss helping to tee up his first, rasping attack with 9km still to go. Further up the climb, Victor Campenaerts and Tiejs Benoot dropped back from the break to provide support to Vingegaard. His attacks didn’t break Pogacar, of course, but his efforts will build morale ahead of the Alpine stages to come.

“It’s an interesting position to be in because we really have nothing to lose and Jonas doesn’t care if he loses more time or loses a place in the GC, you know,” Kuss told ITV Sport when it was put to him that there are still four climbs of 20km or so to come on this Tour on stages 18 and 19.

“We don’t know exactly where we’ll attack, but at least we have the mindset that there’s nothing to lose. That makes it motivating for the rest of us to give it everything and not end the Tour with any regrets.”

The Tour climbs the Col du Glandon and Col de la Madeleine on stage 18 ahead of a summit finish on the mighty Col de la Loze, while the stage 19 features a finale on the hors categorie ascent to La Plagne.

“In the end, we just want to have fun racing and go for it and think outside the box when it’s possible,” Kuss said. “The most important thing is that Jonas is going good. With that we can do a lot of interesting things.”

Visma already did some interesting things on Tuesday afternoon as the Tour resumed following the second rest day. They managed to post both Benoot and Campenaerts in the break of the day, and both men provided key turns for Vingegaard when he reached them on the Ventoux. 

“From Chalet Reynard onwards, I wanted to be able to support Jonas because it's a bit flatter there. We had a bit of a headwind, and when Jonas came along with Tadej on his wheel, it was just amazing,” Campenaerts told Sporza.

“Initially, we wanted to try to ride to within 1.5km of the summit, because from there it gets steeper again. But then Jonas told me he wanted to go earlier so Tadej couldn't recover. It looked really impressive.”

Pogacar and Vingegaard were both around a minute inside Iban Mayo’s 2004 record time on the Ventoux, and Benoot was struck by the speed of the Big Two on the ascent. “It's not normal how fast those guys ride uphill,” Benoot said. “If I look at my values, I’d finish in the top 10 in La Flèche Wallonne, but I’m glad I didn’t become a GC rider.

Directeur sportif Grischa Niermann was upbeat about Visma’s execution of the plan on Mont Ventoux, even if their otherwise irresistible force met an immovable object in Pogacar. Even though he was isolated from his team and even though his own attacks couldn’t shake off Vingegaard, the Slovenian still holds a hefty lead and he remains the overwhelming favourite to win this race in Paris on Sunday.

“You always hope he’ll struggle. In the end, he didn’t flinch and delivered another fantastic performance, but we won’t give up until Paris,” Niermann told Sporza.

“We wanted to be in the mix so we could play off satellite riders on the flatter sections of Mont Ventoux. In the end, there was less wind than predicted, but everyone contributed. When we race with a plan and everyone supports it, our guys can always go the extra mile.”