Vingegaard takes helicopter view after losing yellow jersey to Pogačar: 'That's a shame, of course'

After two days in the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard has lost his lead. Not to a breakaway rider—which almost everyone expected—but to rival Tadej Pogacar of UAE Emirates-XRG. Pogacar won at Les Angers and thus took the yellow jersey from the Dane of Visma | Lease a Bike.

The Dutch team was clearly willing to let a 19-rider breakaway group go after a long battle, but then suddenly Florian Vermeersch of UAE took the lead from Per Strand Hagenes.

By that point, the team at Visma | Lease a Bike must have already seen the writing on the wall: UAE was going for the stage win. In the end, it came down to a sprint to Les Angers, where Vingegaard couldn’t keep up with Pogacar and finished two seconds behind.

"I'm not surprised that the start was so tough, but I am surprised that it ultimately went the favorites' way," Vingegaard said honestly in his post-race analysis. "I actually thought a breakaway group would take the win. But UAE Emirates-XRG wanted to win again. They performed amazingly as a team. It was a fantastic race."

"It's clear that I'm losing the leader's jersey, and that's a shame, of course, but with a finish like that, I can be pretty satisfied," says Vingegaard matter-of-factly—echoing the same sentiment he expressed after the second stage, which was won by Isaac del Toro. In the general classification, he is still tied with Pogacar on time.

"I'm racing at the same level as the rest of the field now, and that's fine for us. We might have expected to be a little behind at this point. It's a good starting point for us," the Dane told TV 2.