Dutch analyst Zonneveld calls Vingegaard "big moral winner" after opening stage Dauphiné: "We didn’t see that from him last year"

"These guys are crazy!" Zonneveld exclaimed at the beginning of his story. He summed it up: "Vingegaard crashed in March and hasn't raced since due to a concussion. Evenepoel was already behind in the winter and hadn't raced for a while. Mathieu van der Poel had a fracture in his wrist, and it was a miracle he was even at the start. And Pogacar already destroyed everyone in the spring. So it doesn't have to happen in the first stage of the Tour preparations, right?"

The four top riders performed as if they were riding around a playground. "There is something playful, something naive, something childish about it. As if Pogacar is walking down the street with a ball under his arm and ringing the doorbell: ‘Come on, Mathieu, Jonas, and Remco, let's play outside!’ But it's more than that, according to the sports director of BEAT Cycling. ‘It's also psychological warfare that never stops. All year long, it's about putting pressure on the others."

Racing so aggressively is not without danger. "They all put themselves at risk of crashing. But they all have the mental strength to push themselves to their limits. Of course, that’s inherent in cycling: you try to keep something in reserve to move when the time is right."

Ultimately, Tadej Pogacar won the sprint and thus the stage, but his Danish rival finished in a respectable second place. "I think Vingegaard is even more of a moral winner than Pogacar," says Zonneveld. "First of all, the team: I rarely saw Visma ride so well in the final of a WorldTour race this year. When you saw how many yellow jerseys were at the front... They were impressive, and that looks promising for the Tour. And then Van Aert will be joining them!"

But it wasn't just the team that was good; Vingegaard was highly aggressive. "I thought it was fantastic. He was the one who attacked and formed the leading group. In previous years, he would have focused on staying with Pogacar. Now, he was attacking himself. You only do that when you're feeling good. When I see this now, I think: wow! We didn't see that explosiveness or determination from him last year. Which was logical, of course," he says, referring to the crash in the Tour of the Basque Country.

But in the opening stage of the French race, we didn't see a defensive climber but an eager attacker. Vingegaard also impressed in the final sprint, overtaking Van der Poel. "It was a crazy sprint. He didn't ride at full speed, and afterward, he said, normally, I would finish fifth or fourth in this group. But tomorrow, he'll be wearing the green jersey."

Van der Poel was in contention but couldn't finish it in the sprint. Normally, he's the fastest, but Zonneveld saw the Dutchman make mistakes. "When you see where he is now after two weeks of messing around, in and out of hospital, X-rays, pain... He did unusually badly in the final. He didn't give anyone else the chance to go too early; he was a bit eager. There was pressure from the peloton, and they had to ride hard, but he went for the sprint right away."

Remco Evenepoel also impressed: initially, the Belgian from Soudal Quick-Step was not with the big names. Once he saw that Vingegaard and Pogacar had pulled away, he kicked into high gear and rode solo toward the leaders. "He wasn't in the right place on that climb, but the speed with which he closed the gap... That was really impressive."

The fact that he had to come from so far back does worry Zonneveld. "This will be a problem during the Tour, his positioning. His team is just a little less than the really big teams, so they will have trouble positioning him well in the Tour. Also, they're partly riding for the sprint train. He'll often have to position himself, and he's not as good at that as Pogacar and Vingegaard."