Jonas Vingegaard has responded to Remco Evenepoel’s accusations that he lacked “the courage to race” during Sunday’s gravel stage of the Tour de France, saying with a smile that he was focusing on “riding smart”.
Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team rode defensively throughout the stage on the 14 gravel sectors near Troyes in central France, keen to limit the risk of losing time or going head-to-head with his biggest Tour rivals, particularly Tadej Pogačar.
On the dirt roads, Pogacar and Evenepoel tried different attacks. Vingegaard was able to respond but never managed to distance them to distance the other riders in the general classification.
Evenepoel pulled away with 77km to go on the Côte de Chacenay dirt track, which is classified as a fourth category. Pogacar and Vingegaard joined him but the Dane refused to commit.
With 20km to go, Vingegaard caught Pogačar thanks to a great job by his teammate Matteo Jorgenson. Evenepoel and Primož Roglič were left behind but Vingegaard again refused to work.
“Tadej and I were not happy because maybe the Tour could have been played,” Evenepoel said of the long-distance attack.
“You have to accept the tactics and the racing situations, but sometimes you also have to have courage to race, and unfortunately Jonas perhaps didn’t have that.”
Vingegaard expected this question at the Visma-Lease a Bike press conference on the rest day near Orléans south of Paris and answered Evenepoel, who often rides aggressively rather than intelligently and defensively.
“Our main concern was not to waste time,” Vingegaard said.
“If I had followed those two and they had distanced me in that sector where I had to let Pogačar ride a little later, I would have lost the Tour yesterday. It’s not a lack of “balls”, I just rode intelligently.”
Vingegaard suffered a punctured lung, a broken collarbone and several broken ribs in his serious injuries in the Itzulia crash in the Basque Country in early April and claimed he had only trained seriously for six weeks.
He tried to limit his time losses, especially against Pogačar, during the first week of the Tour, in the hope of finding his best form for the final week, perhaps when the Slovenian will be losing speed.
Vingegaard lost 50 seconds on the Valloire stage and a further 25 seconds in the Côte d’Or time trial. He is now 1’15 behind Pogačar in the general classification, with Evenepoel 33 seconds behind and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) fourth overall, 1’36 behind.
“I feel like I’m growing up,” Vingegaard said, perhaps playing mind games with his rivals and himself.
“I’m getting better and better. I’m at a high level, much higher than I could have hoped for with only a month and a half of preparation.”
Vingegaard described the first nine stages as a “relatively easy opening week” but remains cautious about how much time he can afford to lose and still possibly win the Tour de France, perhaps even in the final time trial to Nice.
“I can’t put a number on it. Last year I took seven minutes in two days. Now we don’t know how I’m going to react in the third week. We’ll see day by day,” he said.
“Of course, the closer I am, the better. But I had confidence in our plan last year. It worked. I have confidence in our plan this year too. If I win, it will be good. If not, life goes on. This accident has changed a lot in that respect.”
Pogačar seems obsessed with buying time on Vingegaard whenever he can, but the Dane is looking for allies to help him control Pogačar’s aggression.
“No, I don’t see Pogacar as my only rival. I’m wary of all the top 10, maybe even more riders,” he suggested.
“It’s also an advantage for me to have several rivals. We can then help each other to make this race a difficult one.”
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