Visma brace for UAE attack - 'We expect UAE to go bananas on the Tourmalet'

The 186 kilometre stage from Pau to Gavarnie Gèdre carries 4,080 metres of elevation gain and marks the point where the opening week shifts into the high mountains. 

For Visma, the expectation is clear. UAE are likely to make the race hard, and Pogačar is being treated as the favourite for the day.

“The main focus is not the stage win,” Sepp Kuss told Feltet before the start. “If Jonas has the legs, he can of course go for it, but the stage suits Pogačar better. Still, a lot can happen.”

Kuss said Visma’s first task is to keep Vingegaard protected when the race reaches the decisive climbs.

“We have to trust our own strengths,” he said. “We know Pogačar is the favourite, especially on a stage like this. First of all, we have to follow him, but if Jonas feels good, we can also go for it. The most important thing is to ride the climb well and keep people around Jonas for as long as possible.”

Victor Campenaerts was even more direct about what Visma expect from UAE on the Tourmalet.

“We expect UAE to go bananas on the Tourmalet,” Campenaerts said to WielerFlits. “It will be a very hard 45 minutes, and we expect a mano a mano battle.”

Those comments are notable because UAE had suggested a day earlier that they expected Visma to be the team going on the offensive.

The first major mountain test also comes on terrain Visma believe fits Vingegaard’s preparation better than the punchier openings seen in previous Tours. Asked whether the Dane had focused more on longer climbs this year, the team pointed to the different route and final preparation in Tignes.

“The Tour is completely different than last year,” Visma sports director Marc Reef told Feltet. “Coming out of the Giro, with the last preparation that we did also in Tignes, the focus is more on the longer climbs, yes.”

The Tourmalet is likely to define the stage. The Col d’Aspin comes first, with 9.8 kilometres at 7 percent, before the race reaches the hors catégorie climb of the Tourmalet, 12.4 kilometres at 8.7 percent. The summit comes 38.5 kilometres from the finish, leaving a long descent and a gradual run towards Gavarnie Gèdre.

That distance from the top makes the stage difficult to read. The Tourmalet is hard enough to split the favourites, but any move there still has to survive a long final section.

“That’s the first big mountain stage in this Tour de France with the Aspin and the Tourmalet, still the top of the Tourmalet with 40km before the finish, so everything can happen there,” Reef said. “It can be a big fight already, it can also be that it is controlled. So we just need to be ready for everything, and we’ll see tomorrow what happens.”

Vingegaard reaches the first mountain test without time loss, although stage 5 was more stressful than the result suggested. In the final kilometres, Torstein Træen crashed into his bike, forcing the Dane into a late bike change before his teammates brought him back.

“I thought we had come through it well, but then Torstein Træen crashed into my bike,” Vingegaard told Feltet. “I had to change bikes, and the team brought me back. You just have to get to the finish as quickly as possible.”

The incident did not cost Vingegaard any time, but it added to a tense opening week before the race reaches the terrain where he and Pogačar are expected to test each other properly for the first time.