Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo Visma team have swept aside years of Tour de France tradition - with the assistance of a Danish media oulet - in refusing to give a press conference on today's rest day. For decades the race leader has agreed to make themselves available to the media - even at times when they have been under suspicion of doping.
However, while Vingegaard has never faced any such allegations, he and his team simply closed down the tradition today. Instead, he was interviewed by Danish TV2 and that interview was distributed to the rest of the media on the race. It was embarrassing development for the Danish broadcaster, in allowing itself be used by the rider and team at the expense of their colleagues in the media.
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Vingegaard has distanced his Tour rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) once already on the race but Pogačar has since returned the favour twice, including on Puy de Dôme yesterday. And while Vingegaard still leads the Tour overall, Pogačar is now just 17 seconds off the Dane and has the momentum in his favour, for now at least.
Vingegaard perhaps did not want to face questions about being dropped twice - except from a hand-picked media outlet. Whatever the reason, the tradition of the race leader agreeing to speak to the media traveling on the race during rest day was disregarded today, though Vingegaard sounded bullish when speaking to TV2.
“You could say that the third place is now at 2:40 seconds, so there are already some huge gaps in the rankings,” Vingegaard said of himself and Pogačar being way out front. “So I think if one of us hadn’t been there, it might not have been the funniest Tour de France to watch.”
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And while distanced twice already, Vingegaard believes the terrain to come - including the Alps this weekend - will be better suited to him.
“Yeah, I definitely think so. Or so it has been usually at least," he said. "And that is what we believe that I can make the difference on the longer and harder days. And the farther we get in the Tour and more fatigued everyone gets, the better we think it will be for me.
“Some of the stages to come will feature more than one mountain and the entire day will be up and down and not just a mountaintop finish. So far, the only days that has accumulated fatigue has been stage 5 on the Marie Blanque. Those are the days that suit me the best and in the next two weeks there are days that suit me even better.”
The Tour defending champion also said he was content with how things had gone for him so far, claiming he was ahead of where he thought he would be.
“We kind of expected that we would be behind at the moment and then have to gain some time from now on. But that is not the scenario at the moment. We are very happy to be ahead. And yes, I lost eight seconds yesterday, but I don’t think eight seconds will make the difference.”
Asked if he and his team had a plan to "break" Pogačar, Vingegaard said he did, but was tight-lipped about what it may be. "Yes, we have made a plan for that. We are not going to tell you. You must see that.”
