Tadej Pogacar ‘fell asleep on the bike’ to hand seconds to Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France 2023 – Robbie McEwen

Tadej Pogacar “fell asleep on the bike” during Stage 14 of the Tour de France, that is according to Robbie McEwen.

12-time Tour de France stage winner McEwen was speaking alongside Orla Chennaoui, Dan Lloyd and Adam Blythe on The Breakaway.

However, Vingegaard crested the Col de Joux Plane with Pogacar in tow, claiming bonus seconds to ensure a net gain on the stage of one second.

The centre of the Slovenian’s misfortune came on the Joux Plane. Pogacar tried to attack Vingegaard but was impeded by motorbikes, which were themselves slowed by the thick corridor of spectators. As Pogacar was forced to the front, Vingegaard was then able to launch a surprise attack to claim eight bonus seconds, while the Slovenian had to settle for five.

“It was certainly a missed opportunity,” began McEwen.

“With Jumbo riding so hard all day thinking they were going to fatigue Pogacar. And then the attack came from Pogacar himself – probably just the timing of that was a little off, and he didn’t completely crack Vingegaard

“But [at] the intermediate sprint where he just fell asleep on the bike, and Vingegaard jumped in [to take the bonus seconds] with just 100 metres to go to the top.

“That just blew my mind that he could make such a basic error at such an important moment in the race and hand bonus seconds to Vingegaard.”

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