Tour de France: ‘No more riding on the front!’ – Should Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates change tactics?

Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates could be tempted to switch up their tactics at the 2023 Tour de France after both teams saw attacks backfire in the opening week, according to Robbie McEwen and Adam Blythe on The Breakaway.

It means there are just 17 seconds separating Vingegaard in the leader’s yellow jersey and Pogacar heading into the first rest day on Monday.

“It’s the rider whose team is aggressive on the front who pays for it,” highlighted McEwen after Stage 9.

“Again today, Jumbo-Visma went to the front, did all the pace setting and then Vingegaard lost time.

“The time when Pogacar’s team has done it, he’s lost time. It’s going to come to a point when they’re going to realise and go ‘alright, no more riding on the front!'”

With bonus seconds available on the Puy de Dome climb on Stage 9, Jumbo-Visma allowed the breakaway an advantage of over 16 minutes to ensure Pogacar could not take a stage victory and gobble them up.

But Blythe said that while UAE were content to allow it this time, it is unlikely they will do so again. Pogacar has taken 26 bonus seconds in the opening week, 15 more than Vingegaard.

“[Vingegaard] has still got a lot of stages to go and a lot of bonus seconds to go, which I think is going to come into play,” said Blythe.

“UAE were happy to let it [gap to the breakaway] go out today. But there will be days when it finishes up similar climbs that suit Tadej more than it does Jonas and they’ll be like: ‘Oh, you want to let the break go do you? UH-UH. We’re going to bring it back because we know we’re faster.’

“So they [Jumbo-Visma] have to be wary of that.”

Blythe also wondered whether Jumbo’s tactics were becoming a bit predictable.

“They know they want to make it hard for Jonas because they believe that’s better for him,” he said.

“It’s almost inevitable what’s going to happen – there’s no shocks. The team does all the work, Sepp Kuss comes to the front, ramps it up, drops everyone behind apart from two-three guys, and then Jonas goes on the attack. That didn’t happen today, Tadej went on the attack instead.

“There must be a point where Jumbo-Visma go ‘OK, we’re going to try something different. Even though we’ve got the yellow jersey, we’re going to try and put one rider in the break, we’re going to try and stress UAE out a little bit, we’re not going to take the responsibility, we’re going to chuck it all on them and make their life hard’.”

The Tour returns with Stage 10 on Tuesday as the peloton travel from Vulcania to Issoire.

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