Jonas Vingegaard gave it all he had on stage 18 to try and dethrone Tadej Pogacar for a last time. Although the possibility always existed, the leader of Team Visma | Lease a Bike saw no weaknesses in the yellow jersey on stage 19 into La Plagne and so he prioritized trying to get a stage win to close off his race. Vingegaard spoke shortly about the final day in the Alps.
The stage was shortened and although still very difficult, the 93 kilometers between Albertville and La Plagne perhaps gave no way for the gap of over 4 minutes to be closed. A chance could’ve emerged if Tadej Pogacar had shown difficulties, but UAE Team Emirates – XRG’s attitude from the start of the Col du Pré showed the opposite. Visma had Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson in difficulties, and there was also no chance to succeed from the breakaway.
All the cards to play were on Vingegaard, and the Dane gambled on the final climb to try and at least net a stage win to in some way save his race. “Of course it’s a bummer. I tried to play the game on the last climb, and I was more focused on winning the stage than on winning time,” the Dane said to a group of reporters at the finish line. “It’s unfortunate that Thymen Arensman was there, of course. But he rode hard today.”
The fatigue was also quite clear, seeing as Arensman managed to match the best so strongly and even beat them on the day. Vingegaard responded to the two attacks of Pogacar with 14 and 7 kilometers to go respectively, but didn’t launch one of his own, and decided to stick to the wheel of the yellow jersey in a bid to at least chase down the stage win. However, Pogacar was not keen on chasing down Arensman, and the two ultimately ended up fighting for minor places on the day.