On the final climb of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Jonas Vingegaard launched one last attempt to distance his rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), but the race leader held firm on his wheel all the way to the finish, where Vingegaard took second on the stage and Pogačar added yet another victory to his growing palmarès.
On the ascent of Plateau du Mont-Cenis, Vingegaard accelerated away from a reduced peloton with the world champion on his wheel and bridged up to his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Sepp Kuss, who had been part of the early breakaway. Although they managed to catch all but one of the remaining escapees, Vingegaard couldn’t shake Pogačar and had to settle for second place in the overall standings.
In the pre-Tour de France clash between three-time Tour winner Pogačar (2020, 2021, 2024) and two-time champion Vingegaard (2022, 2023), the Slovenian emerged victorious.
Vingegaard struggled to respond to Pogačar’s explosive accelerations on the climbs, on stage 1 and even more so on stage 3, where he lost the advantage he had gained in the time trial. In the end, Vingegaard finished 59 seconds back in the overall standings.
After the finish, the Dane calmly answered questions and even cracked a smile while he admitted that he needed to work on “a bit of everything” in the next three weeks leading up to the Grand Départ in Lille.
“On the accelerations on the longer climbs as well. So hopefully I can take a step in the next three weeks until the start of the Tour, and then we'll see when we start,” Vingegaard told CyclingPro and other media at the finish.
Satisfied with his team’s efforts, Visma sports director Grischa Niermann agreed with his team leader’s comments.
“Of course, we would have liked to win the Dauphiné,” Niermann said in a team release. “But I’m happy with where we stand as a team at this moment. There’s still some work to be done, but we had anticipated that.”
When asked if he noticed any weaknesses in his main rival, Vingegaard smiled and replied, “Tadej looks very, very strong, so it's hard to see anything. We also focus more on ourselves, to be honest. And even if I did see something, I wouldn’t say it here.”
Vingegaard understands that being the defending Tour de France champion brings extra pressure, but he doesn’t believe it will faze Pogačar.
“Depends on your - how to say it - on your preparation, obviously. So of course there's more pressure on him, but I think he's also in a place that he can really handle it. So I don't think that will change anything at all. I think the both of us have been able to handle the pressure in the last few years very well.”
Vingegaard concluded simply that “Tadej is the biggest favourite.”
“We only focus on ourselves,” he added. “We focus on our process to be as good as possible in the Tour. And we still do it, no matter what happens here.”
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