Vingegaard saves the day on Campenaerts' bike after late Tour crash

Everybody has a plan until the Tour de France hits them in the face. Visma | Lease a Bike’s stated strategy for the sprint days is to sit Jonas Vingegaard and his teammates towards the rear of the peloton to try to avoid crashes, but that didn’t spare the Dane from a late scare on stage 5 to Pau.

Vingegaard was caught up in the crash that split the bunch with a shade over 5km remaining. The incident took place just metres outside the day’s established safety zone, and that forced Vingegaard into a frantic pursuit aboard his teammate Victor Campenaerts’ bike.

In that regard, Visma’s strategy could be deemed a success. The presence of his team served as a safety net following the crash, and Vingegaard successfully limited the damage in the final kilometres.

He crossed the line 14 seconds down on stage winner Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) and he was ultimately awarded the same time as all his GC rivals, including Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM).

“We heard that Jonas was in the crash, or at least involved in some way,” sport director Marc Reef told Danish broadcaster TV2. “He quickly got a new bike from Victor Campenaerts, and the boys were quickly with him. They rode hard for him, and in the end, everyone came in at the same time.”

Reef maintained that Visma’s collective response to Vingegaard’s crash justified his team’s approach to the finale.

“We knew it was a dangerous turn with a pavement on the right-hand side. We knew it was coming,” Reef said.

“I still think it was a good way we handled the final, and we were there together. It always gets a bit hectic if there’s a crash, but in the end, Jonas got his bike from Victor, we rode hard to the finish line, and it didn’t cost us anything.”

Vingegaard crossed the line in 53rd place, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he would be awarded the same time as Pogacar. The Slovenian led the second group on the road home in 21st place, and there were visible gaps among the riders streaming in behind him. None of them, however, were more than the three seconds required by the commissaires to assign Vingegaard to a different finishing group.

“There were riders in between everywhere, so there were no gaps of three seconds,” Reef told Sporza. “There were about ten seconds between Pogacar and Jonas, but with riders in between, which meant that everyone is given the same time.”

Vingegaard remains in fourth place overall, 7:53 behind yellow jersey Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) and on the same time as Pogacar. The Tour returns to the Pyrenees on stage 6 with a mammoth stage over the Col du Tourmalet to Gavarnie-Gèdre.