‘It’s a special climb’ – Jonas Vingegaard highlights Alpe d’Huez as place to hunt down Tadej Pogacar

Jonas Vingegaard is emerging as the clear contender to snatch the yellow jersey from Tadej Pogacar, and highlighted the climb at Alpe D’Huez as the best place to take down the race leader.

Vingegaard gave up 39 seconds on Pogacar in the first week, but believes that mountain stage of the race could prove crucial in this year’s Tour de France.

“I guess Tadej doesn’t have bad days . He is very, very strong and we will have to do our best and try to challenge him. I also think there are many more drivers who can fight for victory. It’s not just me and Tadej. There are many who they can attack . We will have to see in the coming weeks how everything will be resolved.”

The Dane was 5’32” behind Pogacar in the 2021 edition of the Tour, and the pressure is on for him again a year later to make up the time on the formidable Slovenian.

“Last year I was a bit more, not relaxed but let’s say pragmatic if something happened and it didn’t matter if I wasted time,” Vingegaard added. “This year is the opposite: we don’t want to waste time. Being 39 seconds behind Pogacar is not nice, but it’s the Tour de France and anything can happen.”

The rider also reflected in more detail about the opening week of the race, and assessed the progress made by CI WorldTeam Team Jumbo–Visma so far.

“I feel good, it has been a difficult week, of course, but the form is good and I hope to have good days to come.

“We did very well in the first stages, without crashing or losing time, but I was unlucky in the first cobbled stages because we had a crash and I broke my chain. There was also [Primoz] Roglic’s fall, but we’ll keep fighting.”

– – –