Evenepoel says Vingegaard "didn't have the balls" to race on gravel stage

Remco Evenepoel said if Jonas Vingegaard had "the balls" to ride when they broke clear, with Tadej Pogačar, they could have put the final podium out of sight (Photo: Charly Lopez)

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal QuickStep) was clearly keen to put as much pressure on one of his main rivals for a podium finish at the Tour de France, Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), on the gravel stage today and was not happy others were unwilling to drive home the advantage.

Evenpoel broke clear of the remains of the peloton with yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma | Lease a Bike). However, though that trio got across to the winning breakaway, there was then a dispute among them when Vingegaard was unwilling to ride.

The lack of cooperation from all three saw a dispute break out before they dropped back to the peloton. That move allowed the breakaway re-establish a gap.

The breakaway then eventually made it all the way to the finish, with Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) winning an epic stage from Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Derek Gee (Israel Premier Tech), with Ireland's Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) in 5th.

Advertisement

Evenepoel was clearly unhappy at the finish, and though he accepted any rider could chose their own tactics, he believe the group could have gain three or four minutes, and perhaps decided the final podium, if Vingegaard had agreed to ride and full cooperation had broken out.

"I think Tadej and I were not happy with it," Evenepoel said of Vingegaard - who is still trying to ride himself into form - being unwilling to press forward.

"I think maybe the podium for the Tour could have been decided today already. So, yeah, like I said, we have to accept race tactics, race situations.

"But sometimes you also need the balls to race and, unfortunately, maybe Jonas didn't have them today. Like I said, it was the race tactics…

"But, no problem, the race is still very long and I totally accept the reasons why he didn't pull, why he didn't race. But, of course, Tadej and I both like to attack pretty far away from the finish, so we wanted to continue.

Related News

"Jonas is sometimes a bit more defensive but we have to accept it and he will have had all the good reasons to have raced like this. So, I completely understand why."

For his part, Vingegaard said he did not think of riding when he pulled clear with Pogačar because the pace was so high and he preferred to have team mates with him and simply get through the stage with his chances intact.

He also appeared to take the same view with he was later clear as a trio, with Evenepoel also present and generally believed the gravel was so high risk he did not believe it belonged in the Tour de France.

“He was riding so fast himself, we didn’t think about it,” Vingegaard said of his two-man move with Pogačar. “We thought it was better for us to have more teammates in case something happened.

“It would have been better to ride because Primož and Remco were not there, but on the other hand, our goal was not to lose time, so maybe it was better to wait.”

Vingegaard said he got two punctures, including in the last 3km, and when he had to swap bikes much earlier in the stage with team mate Jan Tratnik. He rode 99km on his team mate's bike, adding he was "very relieved to make it to the finish without losing any time".

Related News