Visma | Lease a Bike forced to adjust strategy during Tour de France stage over the Tourmalet

Visma | Lease a Bike took a real hit on Thursday during the first mountain stage of the Tour de France. The Dutch team was honest about that afterward, with Jonas Vingegaard and sports director Marc Reef both refusing to sugarcoat the situation. Reef later gave his view on where things now stand in the Tour.

Tadej Pogačar attacked on the Tourmalet after a perfect lead-out from his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates. Vingegaard chose to ride his own pace and briefly came back to within six seconds of the Slovenian all-rounder, but eventually had to bow his head. At the finish, the gap stood at 2.40 minutes: a major chunk of time to recover.

“It’s definitely a disappointment that we need to process for a moment,” Reef said. “We had taken into account that there could be a time gap, but losing 2 minutes 40 seconds in this stage is quite a lot. Still, we have fifteen stages left, and there will undoubtedly be opportunities. This is certainly not a knockout.”

The team also issued its own explanation after the stage. “Today’s result is indeed disappointing, but we saw a Jonas who fought all the way to the finish. He did everything he could to limit the gap to Pogačar while also keeping the chasing group behind him — and he did that well.”

“In the opening phase of the stage, we tried to get one of our riders into the breakaway as a satellite rider, with the aim of supporting Jonas after the Tourmalet. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, so we had to adjust our strategy during the race,” Reef confirmed. Victor Campenaerts and Matteo Jorgenson had already spent a lot of energy there.

“On the Tourmalet itself, when Pogačar attacked, Jonas rode his own tempo. For quite a long time, he managed to keep the gap at around ten seconds. With about two kilometers to go to the summit, however, he had to ease off slightly. From that point on, he fought all the way to the finish, but unfortunately it was not enough to keep the time loss smaller.”

At Visma | Lease a Bike, there is little sense that they got things badly wrong. “I think Jonas actually handled the first part pretty well,” Reef explained later to NOS. “When Pogačar accelerated toward the top, with around 4.5 to 5 kilometers still to climb, Jonas immediately chose to ride his own pace.”

“You could see that too: for quite a long time, the gap stayed within ten seconds. Only with two kilometers to go did he have to drop the pace a bit. From there to the finish, the gap gradually increased to 2 minutes 40,” Reef said. “I don’t think we immediately need to repair anything. Above all, I think we need to stay calm. Tonight we’ll sit down together, and from there we’ll look ahead again.”

“It was not his best day, but there are definitely still opportunities in this Tour,” the head coach continued, remaining combative. “As I just said, we still have six stages to go. There is a pretty hard weekend waiting for us in the second week, and in the third week we’ll also get a few very tough stages.”

“So there will absolutely still be chances, and we will definitely keep believing in that. Paris is still far away,” Reef concluded, using the most classic of Tour de France clichés.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]