Tour de France: ‘Every reason to believe in himself’ – Jonas Vingegaard can still challenge Tadej Pogacar for yellow

Eurosport’s Breakaway team have discussed whether Jumbo-Visma rider Jonas Vingegaard’s can threaten UAE Team Emirates’ Tadej Pogacar’s lead, and insist the Slovenians challengers “won’t be beaten yet”.

Pogacar produced a stunning effort during stage 6 to snatch the yellow jersey from Belgium’s Wout van Aert – Vingegaard’s teammate – recording one of the fastest Tour de France stages ever.

Vinegegaard finished the stage 31 seconds off the pace of leader Pogacar, and Eurosport expert Dan Lloyd believes the Danish rider can still challenge the Slovenian.

“He’s really very much in the game for this general classification,” Lloyd insisted. “Was it 31 seconds down on Pogacar at this point?

“He’s got every reason to believe in himself based on what he did last year, where he was climbing at least as well as (Primoz) Roglic, if not better, that whole team, they won’t be beaten yet, despite what they’ve seen from Pogacar on the cobbles yesterday, on this finish today, we’ll have to wait and see and tomorrow’s the first real true test of climbing, there are much bigger ones to come but I think we’ll get a much bigger sense and bigger picture of how everyone’s going in tomorrow’s stage.”

The Breakaway team did predict Pogacar would hold onto the yellow jersey until the very end, but Vinegegaard’s history has given them food for thought as to whether the defending champion can hold off the challenge.

“What we’re saying is this race is far from over,” three-time Tour de France winner Robbie McEwen said. “Ok, Pogacar is in control at the moment, it’s a slender lead, and it’s pretty much what we expect him to be, never far from the top and he’s taken the yellow already a day earlier than we may have expected.

“But for Vinegegaard, I think he’s around expectations of the team of where he would be and the end of the first week and you know, if you could be privy to their team meeting and their planning, I’d think you’d probably hear that ‘if we’re within 30 seconds of the end of the first week, we’ll be quite happy with that’, so I think they’re doing a really good job, it’s bad luck with Roglic but Vinegegaard is very, very well placed, but it just looks so ominous with Pogacar because, you know, where’s the chink in the armour?

“I just don’t see one coming.”

– – –