Professional Cycling 2025 - PoGOATcar?

While true, this feels so over. Pogacar didn't just beat Vingegaard, he destroyed him. Jonas never had a prayer of matching that kick when Pog went. With Remco and the other pretenders already gone at that point, Vingegaard was the last hope. No chance.

Sure, anything could happen. Pogacar could get sick and have a day where he loses double digit minutes. But it probably won't.

I love Pog so much that I simply refuse to say things like this out loud

I kinda want Pog to win all 3 jerseys, even for him this could be a once in a career opportunity.

When Pogacar has a 10min lead to win his 8th tour de france in 2029, are people still going to be saying "but did you remember that one time where he lost x min on col de la loze" ?

Honestly, we overcomplicate it. Legs do the talking and Pogi has had consistently the strongest one all years by far. Sure, it can theoretically flip on an accident but it won't be due to "having a bad day"

There’s every chance, unless a climber can tie a few long breakaways together.

I think he will win Green and Yellow given there are 4 more climbing stages left

The time gaps are already more like the final GC at the end of the tour, rather than the ones where there has only been 1 mountain stage.

Jonas was very good today. Kudos to him as well. It’s the race of truth and the truth is that he is below Tadej but way above the rest

Another uplifting day for Vingegaard - and a strange one for UAE. They pull to get close enough on the final climb but then slow down again and Arensman's lead stabilizes for long enough for him to win.

It kind of seems like Pogacar made the call to go for the stage but then maybe didn't have the legs? I don't know how else to make sense of their approach today.

However, much worse, I think, is Visma. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm finding myself agreeing with Yoko Ono (Vingegaard's wife Trine). Visma spends so much effort on things that do nothing to help Jonas. Why on earth are you sending your best two climbers (who are below their normal level and were unlikely to win anyways) to fight for a stage - on the second hardest stage of the Tour, one of the best (only) chances remaining to do damage to Pogi?

Yes, I know it looks unlikely, but you've got to try. When Vingegaard has beaten Pogi it has been by making him crumble on the hardest stages - and he looked like he was not at his best today. But Vingegaard has no help from his team because the only two guys who are of any help on the climbs have been sent to a break where they're nowhere near. I genuinely don't know what they're thinking. You have a two-time Tour de France winner, the best non-Pogacar (or Armstrong) GC rider in ~30 years, but you're not going all out for supporting him, instead banking on your domestiques to find legs they haven't had all Tour just to have a shot at a stage? It's baffling.

Instead Pogi got to set the pace - which was slow, and Vingegaard couldn't test him with his team, his only approach was to attack, where he then couldn't go all out of fear of backlash, which was made harder by the headwind on the final climb. Pogi said after the stage that he didn't have the power to counter him, so it seems this would have been a good day to test him more, but when Jonas has zero guys applying pressure for him, that's never going to work very well. I don't get their tactics.

It also doesn't help that literally everyone on the team except for Jonas and Campenaerts are underperforming. Yes, Kuss isn't bad (but nowhere near his best) and Yates hasn't been outright terrible (nowhere near his top level, but that's expected with a Giro in his legs), but everyone else (not counting Affini who's a non-factor in the mountains) has been shocking. van Aert has been a total passenger (for the second year in a row), I've seen him go into meaningless breaks where he's nowhere near a win or even the final but I don't remember seeing him take one pull for Visma at a time when he was needed for Jonas. Then again, riders being out of form isn't their fault, Visma have just seemed to not get much right this Tour, imo.

Would any of these things being different have changed the outcome of the Tour? Unlikely. But I think it is unacceptable that they're doing this poorly as a team - especially in relation to how they strategize in a way that doesn't prioritize maximizing Jonas' chances - however tiny they may be.

Yes I also thought that about Pog and UAE. They were really well set at the base of the final climb but then never went for it

Also agree re Visma. The team is a shadow of what it was 3-4 years ago and it seemed very strange to have two of their strongest in the breakaways chasing the stage win. Maybe they have given up on the GC but that seems weak and wrong

But nonetheless, it did seem to be a small
chink in Tadej’s armour today and Jonas will have some hope and more confidence today than yesterday. Maybe it was just Tadej thinking he has enough time now and doesn’t need to attack but that seems a) -ev….if you can take more time and build the lead you should surely do it and b) unlike Tadej, who always takes the aggressive option

Still…it makes the next few mountain stages more fun still

Yeah, he could likely have attacked but if he wasn't feeling at 100%, might be better to keep the eyes on Paris than a fifth stage win - he'll get more chances of that in the coming days.

Another head-scratch-inducing day for Visma yesterday.

Why are they so obsessed with going for stages? Meanwhile Jonas is single-handedly closing the gap to the group ahead. I know there wasn't real danger, but the real question is why on earth Visma are sending their domestiques - who are all except Campenaerts underperforming - into breaks they hardly have a realistic chance of winning - instead of saving themselves to be able to put the pressure on in the mountains. Saturday was an abject failure, but yesterday was another shocking day.

I can't help but think about how ridiculous the reasoning "van Aert needs freedom to be motivated to ride for the team as well" looks in hindsight. This logic was sensible in 2022 when he was a top rider, but now he's a complete freeloader, whose not winning stages not winning the team. With his form he should be happy to even be selected for the Tour - but he keeps spending all his efforts to chase pointless breaks where he's not close. Yesterday he attacks from the break after Wellens was clearly winning the stage. Is he fighting for second places now (where he failed to beat guys in a sprint he ought to beat anyway)? He seems to labor under the illusion that he's still capable of going into breaks and being a significant factor in the races. But reality is he's unlikely to ever return to his best - that's what has happened to many strong guys who peaked and were dominant relatively early in their careers, Sagan or Alaphilippe, for example.

It's also very telling for the level between the teams that Visma sends several guys each day but haven't been close since Yates was a total passenger spending zero energy against mediocre climbers which is why he could win, while UAE spends all time with Pogi and the one time they send a rider for the stage, he wins by a landslide.

Again, in the grand scheme of things considering Pogi's level, Visma being at their 2022 or 2023 level would hardly have changed much - but it would give them at least a theoretical chance because they could actually apply the pressure that, currently, UAE are the only team to do - and they can just ride based on whatever Pogacar feels like. The only sliver of a chance for Visma would be pressuring hard and then praying for a Pogacar off-day. But that off-day is even more unlikely to come if there's no team to make the race hard - and who's going to ride hard with Jonas even if Pogacar has a crisis if Jonas has zero helpers and Pogi still has half his team? It's just not going to happen.

Ranting aside, tomorrow looks like a great stage for Pogacar. Not too hard all day before a gruelling climb - where he'll likely look to set the record straight after all the times he's had to hear about how Vingegaard dropped him there in 2021.

It feels like it could be yet another nail in the coffin - though I'm praying for a Jonas redemption.

yeah, I mean if Jonas can win/doesn't lose time it sets the two big days up very nicely. But Pog will surely be looking to attack. the interesting thing will be how far out he goes

Who do you think Lisa-bike sends to win the stage tomorrow?

Personally, I’d go with Vingegaard but that’s probably too obvious…

Who else could possibly win it other than Jonas?

Or you mean send someone on a long solo break to get far enough ahead to stay ahead up the climb?

If Visma don’t keep all their climbers and strong riders with Jonas on this stage it will mean they don’t believe he can win

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I don't really expect anyone, Visma or otherwise, to get enough of a gap to survive to the finish - the first 130km are pretty flat so there isn't much of anything to discourage the sprinters and the sprint point is pretty late in the stage.

Well I was sorta throwing shade at Visma after the last couple of weird strategeries. At this point I suspect “they’re doing a normal, logical bike race” would confuse everyone else. I’m pretty heavily on either Pogi or Jonas tomorrow and at least hope to not be wondering what on earth Visma is thinking.

Looks like some real men from boys stuff tomorrow, iconic mountain (kinda looks like a blowup of the time trial), practically a rest day Wednesday…those two or who else indeed?

Am super disappointed this will be for the breakaway

Pogacar basically could have won if he wanted to, all he needed was his team to keep less than a 4min gap at the bottom.

You can get a mythical win at the Ventoux, the green & climber jersey and you're just happy to let the breakaway win. Really hope all the online bullshit about his domination did not end up affecting him

This seems like an overreaction

Much better performance from Visma and a worse performance by UAE made it harder for Tadej today but he showed he was up to it.

Jonas is getting stronger as the Tour progresses, as he does and it wouldn’t surprise me if he takes a little time back over the next few days, although maybe that is to underestimate Tadej

These guys are a long way clear of the rest. Crazy that it’s been 5 years like this now and they are still both young in cycling terms so it might continue for a few more years

Really impressive rides by Paret-Peintre and Healy. Just watching the extended highlights, it looked like Van Wilder came completely out of nowhere at the end, had to be a nice boost for Paret-Peintre.

Vingegaard looked great, but Pogacar just shows no weakness.

yeah, when you read about how fast Jonas and Tadej rode up the final climb, you realise that this wasn't a day when Tadej was too weak to attack, it was a day when Jonas showed how really ****ing strong he is too.

I was thinking that this is really the first 'no excuses' Tour since 2022. Both were fully fit that year and Jonas was the strongest. Likewise Tadej in 2021. Then Tadej had a crash in the lead up in 23 and wasn't at his best and then Jonas had a bad crash in the offseason before 24. This year they are both strong, but Tadej is at least for now the stronger of the two

for these two to be 1,2 for 5 straight years is unheard of I think and given the gap between them and third, I think maybe they might extend another few years if they stay healthy. certainly they are young enough if they remain committed

Back in my day we’d’ve suspected some sort of blood doping or adrenaline shot. Glad that’s over. BTW, is there any chance the tail-pipe training might lead to pneumonia? Caveat; in the summer?

Van Wilder was last mentioned in one of those weird in-studio moving-bikes-around segments like an hour earlier. Paret-Peintre also just showed up a bit before that. Don’t worry, I checked the train schedules and it’s highly unlikely that sort of caper was executed. Highly.

Thought UAE played it as if Visma was executing a good plan, which they were today. Jonas looked great and he did have guys set up ahead of him—I can understand playing not to lose to the only actual threat. Grumble-mumble.

Also not hating getting two exciting finishes on the same stage.

What a stage yesterday, exceptional stuff both out in front.

Great day for Visma and Jonas, it bodes well for the Alps although the gap is so big that it will take a collapse from Pogi to turn it around.

It's a shame Vingegaard had those two inexplicable off-days because if the gap had been more like 2 minutes I'd say this Tour was still very open given what we've seen in the past two days and what's to come.

I think yesterday Jonas looked like the best level he's been at the Tour, continuing his usual trend of only getting better (bar '24 without preparation) during week three. At the same time, I think Pogacar looks tired. Both yesterday and on Superbagneres, he did look like he struggled a bit, his counterattacks were pretty weak and Vingegaard had no problems following him. Both stages felt like they were within reach of Pogi to be won - if he had been at his best. He doesn't seem to have the same legs as he did on Hautacam.

Have you seen the times they did? Both were over a minute faster than the mountain has ever been climbed. Pogi wasn’t weak, he was incredibly strong. It’s just Jonas was also at that elite level. They were both just at their limit

Those times have some asterisks, though - specifically that it was the day after a rest day with an extremely easy stage before the climb, and then Visma riding hard from the bottom (whereas Mayo's old record was from a TT where he was obv solo from the bottom).

Case in point: 10 of the 14 fastest times ever up Ventoux came yesterday. Lipowitz and Roglic were 3rd and 4th all time.

If you look at the relative strength between Pogi+Jonas and the others, it's less remarkable. They are "just" 1 minute ahead of Roglic and Lipo - which is not that noteworthy on such a hard climb, considering the normal level difference at play.

It seems to me that the reason Pogi didn't win the stage yesterday (as well as Saturday) is he didn't want to go all out. He could have won both if he really wanted, but he didn't want to dig deep. To me, it seems like an indication that he's tiring (it's also possible he's still a bit sick, as he mentioned he was a few days ago).

I think we're seeing some minor signs of fatigue and tiredness from Pogi. Imo there's no doubt that if he felt as good as he did on Hautacam he would have attacked hard and won both yesterday and Saturday. Instead, he's riding "conservatively", with his eyes on Paris more so than the stage - which I don't think a Pogi who feels unstoppable would have.

I'm praying that Vingegaard wasn't hurt by his crash yesterday. He said today he hurt his shoulder and knee a bit. How anticlimactic would it be if the Alps battle between them is ruined because he got hurt by a photographer crashing him after the finishing line, jfc.

Because I think the trend of the past few days suggests that there's a decent chance Vingegaard can drop him Thursday and/or Friday (not by more than 4 minutes though, Pogi can ride smart and do damage control if he has an off-day, he doesn't need to follow his wheel).