{"id":178177,"date":"2025-06-12T10:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T10:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/178177\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T10:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T10:41:13","slug":"was-pogacar-fooling-us-all-if-tadej-really-tried-to-win-he-wouldnt-lose-that-much-time-even-from-the-couch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/178177\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Pogacar fooling us all? “If Tadej really tried to win, he wouldn\u2019t lose that much time, even from the couch”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The time trial at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9<\/a> produced bigger time gaps than expected. Remco Evenepoel delivered a dominant performance, and Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> also rode a strong race against the clock. On paper, the big loser was Tadej Pogacar<\/a>, who lost 48 seconds to the winner. But former pro Tom Danielson believes the Slovenian planned it all, he didn\u2019t even really try.<\/b>First, Vingegaard. The Dane lost 20 seconds to Evenepoel, but Danielson is impressed, as he shared on social media<\/a>. \u201cJonas looks more muscular than he did during last year\u2019s Tour, where he was extremely lean. He has more power now, both for long efforts and explosive bursts. He also moves less in the saddle than he used to. And he was able to start, climb, and finish with a high cadence on a course that featured so many different types of terrain. That\u2019s really hard to do, and there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019s ready to race for the win in July.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar lost nearly half a minute to his Danish rival. \u201cIf it had been anyone else, people would say: that\u2019s actually a decent result, and there\u2019s still a month and a half to go before the key Tour stages. But it\u2019s Pogi, and he usually wins,\u201d said the former domestique of Lance Armstrong. \u201cSo is there more going on here? I think so. I\u2019m going with my gut: I think he deliberately rode at a controlled pace, almost like a training ride, knowing he\u2019d finish behind Jonas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"remco<\/p>\n

Evenepoel delivered Soudal Quick-Step their 1000th team victory.<\/p>\n

Danielson: “A time trial can be dissected very easily”Pogacar himself admitted that his time trial was \u201cnot perfect<\/a>,\u201d but Danielson thinks it\u2019s all part of the game. What\u2019s that based on? He noticed that the world champion\u2019s body language was nothing like what people are used to seeing from him. \u201cHe started off slow, maintained a much lower cadence than usual, didn\u2019t sprint out of the corners, and didn\u2019t push himself to the limit at the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other side of the story is how much Jonas and Visma are focusing on Tadej. A time trial is very easy to analyze, and if you compare Jonas\u2019 performance to Remco\u2019s, assuming Remco is even stronger than last year, then Jonas is right where you\u2019d expect Tadej to be, if he were at the same level as last year. At Visma, they now have confirmation that Jonas, and Matteo (Jorgenson, ed.), have improved, but they still have no clarity on Tadej.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"Vingegaard<\/p>\n

Vingegaard picked up nearly 30 seconds on Pogacar<\/p>\n

Pogacar with water bottle: “Who brings a full bidon?”<\/p>\n

Last year, Pogacar lost 12 seconds to Evenepoel in the first time trial of the Tour, but in the second one, the final stage in Nice, he left everyone in the dust, putting more than a minute into his closest rival, Vingegaard. \u201cIf Tadej were trying to win, he wouldn\u2019t lose that much time, even from the couch,\u201d the American explains. \u201cIf he went full gas but wasn\u2019t fit, he\u2019d start strong but then fade and lose time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was another curious moment in the time trial. Pogacar took time to sip from a bottle, even though the stage was only 17.4 kilometers long. \u201cWho brings a full bottle for a 20-kilometer time trial? He didn\u2019t even take a gel, so why the bidon?\u201d Danielson believes even this was part of the plan. \u201cHe\u2019ll have to drink during the 33-kilometer time trial in the Tour, so this was a rehearsal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The time trial at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 produced bigger time gaps than expected. Remco Evenepoel delivered a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-178177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114669976581152290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}