Tour de France: ‘They are in a precarious position now’ – How things unravelled for Jumbo-Visma on a dire Stage 15

Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma’s grip on the yellow jersey is under threat going into the final week of the Tour de France after an eventful Stage 15 for the team.

Moments later Vingegaard himself was on the deck after a touch of wheels with team-mate Tiesj Benoot, who looked to come off worse from the incident.

This all leaves the team in a “precarious” position to defend the General Classification lead in the final stages of the race according to Robbie McEwen.

Speaking on the Breakaway after the stage, the Eurosport pundit believes they may come to regret allowing Roglic to leave given everything that followed.

He said: “The first part of that was the decision to pull Primoz Roglic out of the race to let him recover from the injury sustained on all the way back on Stage 5.

“I thought that was a mistake in itself with the team holding the yellow jersey. For a guy who can still actually ride his bike and was still there yesterday, when there were only 20 riders left in the group of favourites, I thought that is a really big call to make and a dangerous call to make.

“Then Kruijswijk fell off and it looks like he’s fractured something and they don’t put you straight in the ambulance unless you have. And then on top of that, Tiesj Benoot comes down. And right behind him goes down the yellow jersey.

“It seemed to be all completely unravelling within the period of 10-15 kilometers for Jumbo-Visma. They must have thought to themselves, ‘Oh, no, what have we done with Primoz? We’re going to need him back’.

McEwan also suggested it was a risk to also Van Aert to contest the sprint at the end of the stage after all their misfortune but accepted they had to let it happen.

He said: “He came there with his ambitions to win green, they’ve got to let him fulfil that but they’re in a precarious position now.”

Dan Lloyd was in agreement, suggesting that the perception of Jumbo-Visma and consequently the complexion of the race, will have changed in a instant following their setbacks on the day,

“It was unbelievable just how quickly it all unravelled,” he started. “They say what a difference a day makes. It was literally a few hours from knowing that Roglic was not going to take the start this morning. And then Kruijswijk on the deck out of the race.

“All of a sudden you go from this bit in your head where you’re like: Jumbo-Visma have Vingegaard who looks equally strong as Pogacar on the climbs. Plus, he’s got seven incredibly strong riders around him.

“Then it’s down to six, then it’s down to five, might be down to four, or at least Benoot might not be 100% from this point, and all of a sudden you’re thinking: wow, this race is now wide open.”

With the race heading into the Pyrenees following the second and final rest day, Adam Blythe then contemplated how Jumbo might approach the potentially decisive mountain stages with Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) poised to snatch yellow from Vingegaard.

Blythe talked up the influence of Van Aert and how will support his team-mate’s pursuit of glory, as well as what Vingegaard himself needs to do.

“I think Wout’s the key with all this in that he’s so good at what he does,” he said. “And he’s so reliable that if a breakaway comes, we’ve seen him almost single-handedly control the breakaway. They just have to dictate a lot more which riders go up the road now. And if that’s getting Wout to ride a harder pace on a climb at the start, wherever it might be, they just need to take more of a control over it.

“And I think Vingegaard has to be a bit more vigilant and the starts now. He had a great team around him where he could control things and he could quietly relax a lot more.

“Now he just needs to be very, very careful of who starts jumping up the road, what team, because if they’re on the back foot from very early on stage is going to be a long hard slog for him.

“Wout might be good to one day, two days, but there will be a time to come where Wout won’t be able to do it and then it’s up to Vingegaard.

“So it’s going to be fascinating to see especially what Pogacar does, because he’s in a great position now where he can isolate Vingegaard and just really lay it into him a little bit.”

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