Vingegaard's best chance was to nuke it on the last 9% rise. If that didn't work, at least he had Pogacar isolated. Now he waited until he was certain to lose the sprint. Not really ballsy.
Thats funny if you think you from behind your keyboard' know Vingegaards physic and Pogacar physic better then the people there are out there...
C''mon they are monitoring each other to the bone, and monitored these climbs to the core, to analyze what scenario that fits for what attack and what kind of state the oppenenent needs to show for it to make sense.
A flat 10km finish, are not ideal for a rider like Vingegaard.. with almost 8 minutes in on Pogacar.. he has been in a league of his own and POgacar and Vingegaards fights made this tour a blast (kudos to both).
Its never been the aspect of being an exploive finisher thats been Vingegaards main strength' as it is with Pogacar and other one day race riders.
Vingegaard is a bonafide GC rider, and why he is ranked nr1 on UCI listis for worlds best Stage rider with quite a margin down to nr2 and been it for a while.
stagewin is stagewin, as Pogacar also explained, there is the GC that is what matters for riders like him and Vingegaard, and if stagewin can help getting the GC, then great,, but stagewins is a secondary, not least if the total win is gone..
Jonas was not gonna drop Pogacar on a relative cold stage where pogacar is solid and not least with a climb like this.
and IMO perfect that Pogacar got this comeback-stage , as the superb rider he is.
If Vingegaard needed to take a few seconds to gain the GC, you could bet he would try and likely not succed on Pogacar today as strong as he was, but if he did and won, you can bet he would also risk making a lot of sportradicals even more salty, and they would be critising him for being egocentric, you already have stagewin and a huge double TdF GC win, and indicate all sort of things and he cant even grant other people some win-pleasure etc.
As you can also hear Pogacar says, I felt rally good today,, and you can bet Jonas also saw that on these smaller climbs.
These riders aint amateurs.. you can bet they know a lot more then you do, from behind your keyboard - on what is the right moment & when do the opponent shows the right signs and on which stage that suits what attack.
they do this for a pro living.. you & me dont. !!