Teams & Riders Jonas Vingegaard thread: Love in Iberia

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Great to see the legend back, one of the big3 of Tour MTFs. I don't think it will happen though. I think they will come together and Pog will win. The stage is not super-hard to give Vinge any edge and Pog can bring monstrous w/kg for the last few km. IMO they won't be separated for most mountain stages.
Vingegaard needs to do more than 6.3 w/kg to beat and drop pogacar on this climb.
 
Armstrong was many things but saying he was likeable blows my mind.
Because he was the one who dominated...
Who else in the last 30 years has been a popular and famous as Lance. The US at least was mad for him, like it or not.
I'll agree that he probably presented himself as a likeable guy.
Not sure what you’re trying to communicate here. No one is saying Lance is a great human being, just that people liked him because of his fears on the bike and.,. The way he presented himself, Hard to separate people’s reactions to you from the way you present yourself.
IMO Pogacar is going to win the TdF pretty convincingly. People can quote me on this later but based on the route & Pog's motivation (& the fact UAE is stronger now), the writing is on the wall. Vingegaard is going to struggle in mano-a-mano duels & he'll mistime his attacks, just as he did in Paris-Nice.

Afterwards all the recriminations will be about Jumbo & people will question whether splitting the best riders (Rog & Vinge) between Giro & TdF objectives was a good idea etc. etc. yada yada yada i.e. because last year they went with the strongest team possible to the TdF.

Frankly, I think Pogacar is vastly underestimated & Vingegaard isn't going to drop him on any climb in the 2023 TdF.
Especially if the worst case scenario happens in the Giro and Remco streaks the pink Jersey from Roglic on the final stage, another MTT.
Pogacar beating Roglic hardly means that Vingegaard doesn't have better recovery.
You did watch that race right? Pogi demolished everyone in that race, including #1 and #2 in the Olympics itt. And Wout.
You could argue equally that the Tour 2021 was the stars aligning for Pogi... when Vingegaard found himself in the position of contender the race was already basically over. The fact that Pogi is younger isn't relevant, he's had a longer career as a cyclist than Vingo has.
You could argue the stars have aligned for Pogi every single time actually:
  • 2020 everything was weird due to Covid messing up some people’s prep, Roglic crashed out of the Dauphine 3 weeks before the Tour, and Roglic didn’t take advantage of several opportunities to gain time or prevent Pogi from gaining time because he didn’t think Pogi could beat him and out of affection for him.
  • 2021 Roglic crashed out and Vingo crashed in a Key stage at a bad time
  • 2022 Roglic crashed out
 
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What does surprise me about this spring is not so much Pogi's form, but the fact that he's racing so much... I thought UAE were going to keep him a bit fresher for the Tour this year, evidently that's not the case. Advantage Vingegaard in that sense.
They both have the same number of race days in 2023 and by the end of Itzulia Vingegaard will have 2 extra days racing albeit less hard 1 day races.
 
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Who else in the last 30 years has been a popular and famous as Lance. The US at least was mad for him, like it or not.

Being popular doesn't necessarily mean likeable.

Not sure what you’re trying to communicate here. No one is saying Lance is a great human being, just that people liked him because of his fears on the bike and.,. The way he presented himself, Hard to separate people’s reactions to you from the way you present yourself.

And if you present yourself as a nice guy, despite being a jerk, people are gonna think you're a nice guy.

You did watch that race right? Pogi demolished everyone in that race, including #1 and #2 in the Olympics itt. And Wout.

Exactly, Pogi demolished everyone in the race.
 
I don't agree on week 3 (recovery). How do you explain stage 20 of the 2020 Tdf to La Planche des Belles Filles ?

It isn't me saying it, it's what Jumbo has let slip on various occassions, to Danish media.

There will always be days where it doesn't hold true, because riders are not robots, but as a general trend those are the areas where they feel he can best Pogacar.
 
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Lol, Pogacar is underestimated... if anything it's Vingegaard who's underestimated, people expecting things to go back to 'normal' this year, i.e. a Pogi win. That could very well be, but the Vingegaard we saw in Paris-Nice clearly isn't the one we're going to see in the Tour.

Everyone seems to forget, that Vingegaard is riding far better now, than he was this time last year - before he went on to murder Pogacar at the Tour ;)

That being said, baring crashes or other mishaps, I think it will be a close affair this year, as the route suits Pogacar slightly better.
 
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What does surprise me about this spring is not so much Pogi's form, but the fact that he's racing so much... I thought UAE were going to keep him a bit fresher for the Tour this year, evidently that's not the case. Advantage Vingegaard in that sense.

Pogacar and Vingegaard has the exact same number of race days thus far this year... and today Vingegaard will go 1 day up.
 
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Pogacar had no reason to go with Vingegaard on Ventoux - Why chase someone who is 4 minutes down?

Nobody knows why Pogacar does anything, that's what makes him exiting ;) - but there is no doubt he tried to stick with Vingegaard up the climb, and couldn't.

Now the intangible (the "I can afford to lose time" thought) may have played a role, but none of us can know how much really.
 
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You could argue the stars have aligned for Pogi every single time actually:
  • 2020 everything was weird due to Covid messing up some people’s prep, Roglic crashed out of the Dauphine 3 weeks before the Tour, and Roglic didn’t take advantage of several opportunities to gain time or prevent Pogi from gaining time because he didn’t think Pogi could beat him and out of affection for him.
  • 2021 Roglic crashed out and Vingo crashed in a Key stage at a bad time
  • 2022 Roglic crashed out

You can always say something like that about anyone who won any race.
 
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You could argue the stars have aligned for Pogi every single time actually:
  • 2020 everything was weird due to Covid messing up some people’s prep, Roglic crashed out of the Dauphine 3 weeks before the Tour, and Roglic didn’t take advantage of several opportunities to gain time or prevent Pogi from gaining time because he didn’t think Pogi could beat him and out of affection for him.
  • 2021 Roglic crashed out and Vingo crashed in a Key stage at a bad time
  • 2022 Roglic crashed out

  1. Evenepoel wasn't there.
  2. They let him win.
 
You can always so something like that about anyone who won any race.
Pretty much. So then the question is what races do we use to make a balanced take?

For me the problem is pretty simple that if people want to argue 2022 was such an outlier, they need to argue that Pogacar wasn't performing his best over 3 weeks, or that Vingegaard has never matched or dropped Pogacar on the climbs before, both of which are very easily disproven.

It appears there's this reasoning that goes from "Pogacar is the best alrounder in the world >> he should be unbeatable in the Tour de France" or something like that.
 
It appears there's this reasoning that goes from "Pogacar is the best alrounder in the world >> he should be unbeatable in the Tour de France" or something like that.
That is the first time i've seen anyone claim that or use it as a reason why he would/should have been unbeatable in 2022. My personal take has always been that he simply burned too many matches in 2022 throughout the first 2 weeks of the Tour. It's also the opinion i have read/heard the most by other people, but ofcourse that's anecdotal at best. I think you can't deny that he could have conserved energy a lot better last year. Whether it would have been enough to beat Vingegaard otherwise, we will never know. But if he decides to be less wasteful with his efforts in 2023 and subsequently smokes Vingegaard, it would certainly feed that suspicion.

On the other hand you can't ignore his pedigree as an allrounder with the 2023 course ahead.
 
That is the first time i've seen anyone claim that or use it as a reason why he would/should (have) be(en) unbeatable. My personal take has always been that he simply burned too many matches in 2022 throughout the first 2 weeks of the Tour. It's also the opinion i have read/heard the most by other people, but ofcourse that's anecdotal at best. I think you can't deny that he could have conserved energy a lot better last year. Whether it would have been enough to beat Vingegaard otherwise, we will never know. But if he decides to be less wasteful with his efforts in 2023 and subsequently smokes Vingegaard, it would certainly feed that suspicion.
When you go to "he burnt too many matches in the first 2 weeks of the Tour" you're already pretty much starting with the assumption that he's supposed to be unbeatable.
 
When you go to "he burnt too many matches in the first 2 weeks of the Tour" you're already pretty much starting with the assumption that he's supposed to be unbeatable.
No, i don't agree. We 've seen him struggle on long climbs in 2020 and 2021 as well. It is very possible that he would still have lost time to Vingegaard, just a lot less than he did now. You can't pretend him getting passed on Granon by Yates, Thomas and your grandma is where he would have ended up regardless.
 
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Or you, you know, look at how he rode.
I did. His results in mountain stages didn't change between the first week and the 3rd week. Even with Vingegaard on 20 minute climbs. Worse on 30 minute + climbs.

Data doesn't support the assertion that he was performing worse at all. Gets 3rd in final ITT, which was much better than in 2021. Couldn't drop Vingegaard in the Pyrenees in 2021 either.

I don't question the input variable. I question how you find causation when there's not even correlation.