Wiggins says UAE Emirates "broken unit", any Tour hopes now "ended" for Roglič

Bradley Wiggins believes Jonas Vingegaard's Tour ride chances the dynamic for Jumbo Visma and also for UAE Team Emirates

Bradley Wiggins has questioned if Tadej Pogačar needs to restructure UAE Team Emirates, including its management, as it was "a broken unit".

The 2012 Tour winner believes the overall victory of Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) poses very significant challenges for Pogačar and that the Dane's success changed the dynamic in his team and brings to "an end" any hope Primož Roglič can win the Tour as a Jumbo Visma rider.

Now working as a commentator on the Tour for Eurosport, Wiggins also said he struggled to understand Pogačar's tactics at times.

Wiggins added it was notable that Vingegaard's effort today in the TT was so good, adding the strength of Jumbo Visma and the atmosphere in the team also made it a very strong unit; all factors he believed Pogačar would now have to face up to.

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"The question I'd ask is, 'where does Pogačar go from here?' Because his team, apart from one or two riders…. I don't know if Mauro Gianetti is the man to guide Pogačar now to another three or four wins in the Tour de France.

"I don't know if Pogačar has to go and restructure that team because they really looked like a broken unit. Aside from the Covid cases, and that, there's a few riders getting old, they've got some good riders in there but they're not a patch, they do no match, Jumbo Visma. So where does he go from now?"

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Wiggins said Vingegaard now had a "super strong team" going forward and Jumbo Visma "looks like it's going to be a team that stays together now".

"They're also a team with a new direction now, as Roglič slightly fades away I think; that's probably the end of Roglič now in terms of the Tour de France within that team," Wiggins said on The Move podcast with Lance Armstrong after today's stage.

He also said the way Pogačar raced, sprinting for placings and time in the first half of the race, only caused him to lose power and energy, which he missed later in the Tour.

"I just thought that those extra little sprints, those extra little numbers and power, those maximal sprint power (surges) that you put out, they create damage and they add up over a couple of weeks."

Wiggins added Pogačar made major errors in the early part of stage 11, before Vingegaard went on to drop him on the final climb, the Col du Granon, to win the stage and take yellow.

"I couldn't understand the way he was racing," Wiggins said of Pogačar. "The pattern of racing he was doing… particularly on the flatter parts and the lower slopes of the (Col du) Télégraphe and Valloire before they hit the (Col du) Galibier and I think that was where his Tour ended."