Former rider and sports director Brian Holm has warned that his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard could be in major GC difficulties in this year's Tour de France if the Danish star cannot fend off the overall contenders currently snapping at his heels to move into second place.
Vingegaard is currently lying 3:36 back on race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) after stage 13, which was won by Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), and is just 30 seconds ahead of Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). A further seven riders are at less than three minutes back, spearheaded by Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) in fourth after his long breakaway on Friday while the last, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) in tenth, sits 2:58 down on Vingegaard.
While the Giro d'Italia winner seemingly cannot stem his time losses to Pogačar, rather than concerns about the Slovenian, Holm suggests, his biggest difficulty will be handling an increasingly fraught battle for the right to the runner-up spot and third.
On top of that, Holm told Cyclingnews, Visma-Lease a Bike is not as strong as it could be, with the lack of Simon Yates in the mountains a more than notable absence.
"After the Tourmalet I figured we'd know a bit more, everybody was expecting Pogačar to go and he did and I was hoping Jonas would follow him and sprint at the final. He'd lose maybe 20 seconds at most." Holm, now working for the Danish BT newspaper and Eurosport, said.
"The perfect scenario would be that he chased alone, and ok, that didn't happen. But if somebody loses 30 seconds on the downhill, you start to get nervous, you know what I mean?"
"Then when he lost those 30 seconds, I thought, wow, now it's going to be three minutes at the finish."
"It's ok to lose 10 or 15 seconds on the Tourmalet, but not 30. Then there was Le Lioran, another 30 seconds gone."
"If someone drops you on the uphill, ok, they're stronger. But if they drop you on the downhill, they're smarter."
With the differences between second and ninth overall still very small, and even a rider like Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) back in the GC game after his long-distance breakaway on stage 13, the situation is growing critical, Holm warned. The four-times Tour winner Pogačar may be out of reach, but Vingegaard's chances of taking a second place on the final podium for a fourth time are, he feels, increasingly precarious.
"Vingegaard is still the second best behind Pogačar, but not by far, so he probably has to fight more to stay second than he has to fight to win," Holm warns.
Quite apart from the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's co-leaders of Evenepoel in third and Florian Lipowitz in seventh, "there's also the very strong duo of Lidl-Trek" [with Mattias Skjelmose and Juan Ayuso] "and probably Del Toro will recover too. If they all start attacking, he will have problems."
The team and the Giro d'Italia
As for Visma-Lease a Bike, Holm is concerned that what should be on paper a powerful Tour team is not firing on all cylinders. Yet at the same time, he insists that Vingegaard's decision to race and win the Giro d'Italia, rather than try to ensure he and his squad were stronger in the Tour was sound, because the prestige the Dane gained with that victory had far more value than anything he might have lost.
"No way was doing the Giro was a mistake. Last year we complained because he wasn't racing enough and even if he loses a little bit here as a result, for a Danish guy to win the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta is enormous. It is fantastic."
"I like the way Visma are riding as a collective, they are 110% for Vingo here – the whole team. However, look at [Matteo] Jorgenson, who didn't ride the Giro, but he's still not exactly flying here, In fact the whole team is looking a bit off-colour. Vingegaard was lacking a domestique to chase after Pogačar on stage 10, and Sepp Kuss isn't flying either."
"So Jonas was isolated in the final, and luckily Lidl-Trek were pulling because Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had been dropped. If they had suddenly started attacking Jonas would have been in trouble. He had a bigger chance that day of being up the creek instead of winning."
This intensifies the focus on the current GC standings, where Holm feels the margin behind Pogačar is now all but too big to be crossed, even if Vingegaard does improve in the final week, as tends to be the case in the Tour.
"What does it matter if you're stronger if you're already four minutes back?" Holm asks rhetorically. "If it was a minute, and in second, it wouldn't matter so much."
"It's true UAE are losing a lot of energy, going for stage wins that aren't necessary. But for the moment, I'm not too optimistic. Now Visma are proud because they convinced Pogačar to sit at the back of the bunch like Vingegaard. It's probably easier for sprinters teams that they are there, but if I was second, or I had a rider that was second, I'd say 'now you go to the bloody front because you're second and Pog has more to lose than you do'. So if they can force him to stay in the top 20 in these finales..."
Holm pointed to Vingegaard's technical ability in tricky sprint finales, recalling how when in 2023 there was a very tricky stage at the start of the Tour at Nogaro, the Dane was placed exactly where he needed to be.
"He has to take more risks, that's part of the Tour, that's why people get burned out. Never underestimate what it costs to sit in the top 20 for the last five kilometre for a GC rider, it's so much pressure. But that's part of the game, and now they say let's sit back."
"It's like they have lost it a bit because they're thinking too much. For Pogačar, the Tour looks like it's a game, he's playing around and having fun with it. But for Vingegaard, it looks like it's just hard, hard work."
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