Pogacar’s fast start forces Visma to play the long game at Tour de France

When Tadej Pogačar ripped clear of Jonas Vingegaard a little under 200m from the finish at Les Angles, the Dane’s first instinct was to look over his shoulder to see if anybody else was faring any better than he was. 

In the moment, it didn’t seem to augur well for this Tour de France as a contest. Was Vingegaard really so resigned to Pogačar’s dominance that he was already more concerned about who was coming up behind him?

The Vingegaard-Pogačar duel has defined the Tour in the 2020s, but it became a rather one-sided affair over the past two summers. Vingegaard’s crushing Giro d’Italia victory in May offered the prospect of a tighter match-up this time out, and Visma | Lease a Bike’s show of strength and smarts to win the opening team time trial seemed to underline the point.

That early optimism has been dented somewhat by Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s response on the Tour’s first two road stages. The Slovenian was ostentatious in gifting victory on stage 2 to his teammate Isaac del Toro, and he was merciless about burning Vingegaard off his wheel in the finale on Monday.

The two-second time gap and the winner’s time bonus saw Pogačar take the yellow jersey from Vingegaard. The pair are locked on the same time in the overall standings, but the successive punchy finales still indicated a gulf between Pogačar and the rest. 

On Monday morning, L’Équipe suggested that Pogačar had sought to humiliate Vingegaard in Barcelona by slowing down in the closing metres to cede stage victory to Del Toro. At Les Angles, by contrast, Pogačar made no concessions, but the psychological impact was hardly any different. 

Vingegaard’s teammate Sepp Kuss had briefly taken up the reins on the short, sharp final climb, but Del Toro squeezed past him just outside the flamme rouge before launching a supersonic acceleration that stretched the yellow jersey group to breaking point.

The Mexican didn’t relent until the final 200m, at which point Pogačar unleashed a crisp acceleration. Vingegaard held his wheel for about 30m before sinking back into his saddle and focusing on damage limitation.

Pogačar had time to savour his victory, and he inflicted another psychological blow on Vingegaard by taking the yellow jersey off his shoulders, marking the first time he has ever surrendered an overall lead at the Tour. 

Back in 2023, when Vingegaard and Pogačar exchanged jabs on a seemingly daily basis in the first two weeks, and when the Tour seemed destined to be decided by seconds in Paris, the Dane made a point of never relinquishing yellow.

Back then, possession seemed to be nine-tenths of the law for Vingegaard and Visma. They clawed for every inch against their rival, and they eventually broke Pogačar when the race reached the high Alps in the third week.

That mindset persisted into last year’s Tour, when Visma made a point of trying to turn the race into a war of attrition. Day after day, Visma occupied the front row of the peloton in the manner of Cadel Evans’ BMC guard, and they seemed to be constantly probing for potential weaknesses in Pogačar’s armoury.

They never found one, of course, and that high-intensity, high-vigilance approach ultimately seemed to weigh more heavily on Vingegaard than on Pogačar. For the first time in his Tour career, Vingegaard endured moments where the chasing pack seemed closer to him than he was to Pogačar. 

It’s still very early, of course, but Visma’s approach feels rather different this time around. It’s not clear how much the change in tack owes to the departure of Grischa Niermann and the promotion of Marc Reef, but it’s certainly in keeping with their management of the Giro in May.

On Reef’s watch in Italy, Visma were happy to hand the reins over to other teams wherever they could. On occasion, they even massed at the back with Vingegaard in the manner of Mercatone Uno swarming around Marco Pantani. In the first two weeks, they were even content to allow Decathlon CMA CGM and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe to dictate the tempo on mountain days.

“We choose our moments to be in the front, but we also choose our moments to back off,” Reef told Domestique of the Visma strategy on the Giro, and that thinking looks to be informing their approach in France too.

Although Vingegaard had the yellow jersey for the past two days, Visma made little visible attempt to defend it. Indeed, their former teammate Tiesj Benoot indicated after stage 3 that Visma had been expressly hoping the break would go the distance at Les Angles, even if they did initially keep tabs on its advantage here. 

On the Tour’s first two road stages, however, it was UAE Team Emirates-XRG who took a controlling interest at the head of the peloton, with Pogačar’s squad riding as though they were in possession of the overall lead. 

And although UAE have a team of remarkable depth, they have raced with remarkable commitment over the past two days, setting the tempo from distance over rugged terrain and in soaring temperatures. 

Rather than try to put Pogačar directly under pressure in the opening phase of the race, Vingegaard and Visma seemed more inclined to see if he and UAE will punch themselves out like they did back in 2022.

According to Dutch journalist Raymond Kerckhoffs, always well informed on Visma, Vingegaard’s team believe that he should not get involved in a slugging match with Pogačar over every available second in the opening week. 

“Team calculation models learned this past winter that he is much better off conserving as much energy as possible for the final week,” Kerckhoffs wrote on Wielerflits. “The fresher he enters the Alps, the better he can take on the two-time world champion.”

On finales like Montjuïc and Les Angles, in any case, Vingegaard simply cannot live with Pogačar’s explosiveness. As the glance over his shoulder confirmed, neither can anyone else. 

Faced with Pogačar’s early dominance, Vingegaard and Visma seem to be playing the long game at this Tour, and there is logic to that approach. But they know from experience that even the best theories have their limitations against the brutal reality of Pogačar.