Vingegaard and Lipowitz were only 6 seconds apart, but had very different reactions to Tour de France stage 14

Jonas Vingegaard and Florian Lipowitz were in the same boat during Stage 14 of the Tour de France. The Dane from Visma | Lease a Bike and the German from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe would have loved to challenge Tadej Pogacar, but he simply proved too strong for everyone. However, the two riders’ analyses after the race were 180 degrees apart.

Vingegaard was, of course, the man of the day after Pogacar, because he took the initiative with Visma | Lease a Bike on the fourteenth stage and decided to pick up the pace on the day’s final climb. Even after Vingegaard had dropped his domestiques, he continued to lead the pack. However, the top general classification contenders, including Lipowitz, were able to stay on his wheel.

After the summit, it was really every man for himself, and although Vingegaard had a half-minute lead over Lipowitz at the top, his teammate Remco Evenepoel and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) Evenepoel finished just 4 seconds behind the Dane, with Lipowitz and Ayuso 6 seconds back. As a result, the three remain hot on the heels of Vingegaard in the general classification, who finished only fourth and had nothing left for the sprint.

Still, Vingegaard’s assessment after the race was fairly positive. While Visma | Lease a Bike team director Marc Reef admitted that the team had no answer for Pogacar, Vingegaard focused on himself. “It wasn’t a bad stage. I did get some answers for myself—my legs are where I wanted them to be. I’m happy, and I’m also pleased with how the team rode today.”

Lipowitz kept pace with Vingegaard on the final climb and thus crossed the finish line in almost the same time. The young German, however, wasn’t too happy with how his day went. “It was an incredibly tough day right from the start. I want to thank all the German fans for coming out—I had goosebumps on the bike,” he began, still sounding positive in a brief comment by the team bus.

"I was lacking a bit of leg strength today and would have liked to do better," he continued self-critically. So Lipowitz didn’t have the leg strength he’d hoped for, even though that still earned him a finishing time that was virtually identical to Vingegaard’s—so he was satisfied after all. “We can be happy with the team’s performance, and in the end, we didn’t lose much time. We’ll keep fighting,” said Lipowitz.