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Vingegaard vs Pogačar - The Duel

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If you’re including Wout over Roglic, as much as I like Wout, I’d like to see you post their palmares and make a coherent argument as to how Wout deserves to be there over Roglic.
For me is not a question of palmarés but of make increíble things, and some of those incredible things he done he made It working, wich means no palmarés. It is not the same to beat Van der Poel at his terrain, than to beat Carapaz or Thomas(at 37) and at the same time to win at Vebtoux or to be second after Pogacar at Tirreno with a big mountain stage. That is much more amazing than to have 8 Vuelta a España and 5 Giros if you didnt beat at the best at his best. Although, of course, It has big merit, you have to be regular and a great rider for that, but dont make you better than a lot of riders of other eras, for instance, Quintana,...
 
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Yesterday was a quite short stage in wich they fly on the flat and they climbed Tourmalet, the only long and big mountain of the day nor very fast. That was very good for complete and explosive riders as Pogacar and no good for endurece climbers as Vingegaard.

Anyway, in a normal situation maybe Pogacar could have put 10 seconds to Vingegaard, but not more than a half minute.
Two factors, Pogacar IS obviously better than past year and Vingegaard IS obviously worse. It is amazing the good he his after his horrendous crash, but at least a point below his level.

And the other factor IS team, UAE this year is clearly better than Visma. Vingegaard doesnt have the powerfull attack of Pogacar, so to drop Pogacar need before a high pace of his team. He doesnt need his team to defend but yes to attack.

Today IS a longer stage and the last climb IS long and more temperature. Last km no so hard, that is better for Poggi, but in general better stage for Vingegaard. But looking at the difference yesterday IS difficult to think he can drop Pogacar, and more with Adam Yates over there.

Hope Quicky Step try something with Landa and Remco that make work UAE and make stage hard from long. The stage has lot of flat sections and there Remco IS the best.
 
His point about Vingegaard's injuiries not being as bad as they were portrayed is obviously made up and a really stupid and disrespectful thing to say.

But his other point about the training numbers being better than last year should be readily verifiable and someething quite a few others have said. So I'm keen to understand exactly what you mean by saying "of course" he's not in peak shape?
If numbers refer to power, they are mostly meaningless unless coupled with duration. Building the ability to sustain a very high (ie supra threshold) output typically takes significant training time. My bet is that Vinge lacks in this department compared to what he was heading towards in March, but also compared to last year. If he did not, the implication is that sustained training is not that important anyway.

Acknowledging this takes nothing away from Pog, btw.
 
After watching the first two weeks, I think I might owe Pog an apology. I was not convinced at all that his wrist was an issue last year. But these guys are so evenly matched that even half a percentage point difference counts. I would say Jonas is at 99% of last year and Pog is at 101%, thus the gap that Pog has been able to create. both in the TT and on mountain stages.

My take ahead of the Tour was that everything had to go perfectly for Jonas to win, including having GC Kuss, a top form Wout, and perfect tactics. The first two are out the window; tactics have been OK save the crosswinds stage where Visma let Yates get in the break. Today Visma played the only card they had but it wasn't enough.

So...barring some sort of miracle in the Alps, I don't see Jonas doing anything other than limiting losses, but he's got enough of a cushion on Remco to take some changes. There will be no shame in losing to Pog by 7 or 8 minutes. Which is what I expect.
 
May 10, 2024
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This is the biggest rivalry in cycling history! Thank God, we have Vingegaard to stop Pogacar's dominance!! He would be a 5 time Tour de France winner and he is only 25 years old...
I'd even dare to say that Pogi wouldn't be this good if there was no Vingegaard. He's the one who pushed him to train even harder to win TDF. Everything else Pogi could win as he was in 2022, with some luck maybe.
 
Vingegaard is a worthy opponent in the highest degree. Neither life not career ends up with losing the Tour. Strengthening the 2nd prace while 1st seems out of reach so far was a reasonable thing to do. No one knows what outcome would've been, if there hadn't been that horrific crash on Pais Vasco. I'm not ready to say fully fit and recovered Vinegaard would've 100% thrashed Pogacar, but the battle would be way closer. Looking back at the 2022-2023 the Dane was deservedly regarded as the strongest GC rider and perhaps the best climber overall. Now to strike back he must reastablish himself in those statuses which is extremely difficult. The Tour is ON, though. No reason to panic. 2 years ago until the Granon stage Pogacar seemed completely untouchable, bookies were accepting 1.25:1 odd bets on him winning, but one climb changed everything, so Visma will continue to fight.
 
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Pogačar did 6.98 ᵉW/Kg for 39:50 min, which is by far the greatest climbing performance ever, taking into account conditions and the stage difficulty. Sea normalised power for this historic effort is 7.27 ᵉW/Kg. Pogačar’s adjusted altitude score was 696, which means this performance was equivalent to pushing 6.96 ᵉW/Kg for 60 minutes at sea level. Jonas Vingegaard, despite losing 68 seconds did the second-greatest climbing performance of all time. The Dane did 6.85 ᵉW/Kg for 40:58 min. His altitude score was the second highest in history with 685. Until today, Marco Pantani’s Alpe d’Huez in 1997 was the best in history

 
It feels like Vingegaard Visma were banking on this stage in their plans to crack Pogacar with the hard racing done in the crosswinds from Visma and yesterday’s stage. Stage 11 probably brought a lot of hope to them, then add in Almeida and Adam not looking good and dropping from Jorgenson’s pace today and they might have started believing even more that Pogacar will crack. Pogacar and UAE are just that much better this year, but from where Vingegaard is coming from that’s no slight as he’s doing crazy high numbers as well and without Pogacar would be first.

The main question is if Visma try again and risk being embarrassed or try again on stages 19 and 20.
 
After watching the first two weeks, I think I might owe Pog an apology. I was not convinced at all that his wrist was an issue last year. But these guys are so evenly matched that even half a percentage point difference counts. I would say Jonas is at 99% of last year and Pog is at 101%, thus the gap that Pog has been able to create. both in the TT and on mountain stages.

My take ahead of the Tour was that everything had to go perfectly for Jonas to win, including having GC Kuss, a top form Wout, and perfect tactics. The first two are out the window; tactics have been OK save the crosswinds stage where Visma let Yates get in the break. Today Visma played the only card they had but it wasn't enough.

So...barring some sort of miracle in the Alps, I don't see Jonas doing anything other than limiting losses, but he's got enough of a cushion on Remco to take some changes. There will be no shame in losing to Pog by 7 or 8 minutes. Which is what I expect.

Last year it was Pogacar's preparation and wrist injury which led to his downfall. He was overdone in the lead up with all the classics and his training also in part focused on winning Flanders.

He probably thought he was still better than Vingegaard but was proven wrong.

Pogacar's season up to his injury:
Whilst Vingegaard was only focused on one thing.
 
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It feels like Vingegaard Visma were banking on this stage in their plans to crack Pogacar with the hard racing done in the crosswinds from Visma and yesterday’s stage. Stage 11 probably brought a lot of hope to them, then add in Almeida and Adam not looking good and dropping from Jorgenson’s pace today and they might have started believing even more that Pogacar will crack. Pogacar and UAE are just that much better this year, but from where Vingegaard is coming from that’s no slight as he’s doing crazy high numbers as well and without Pogacar would be first.

The main question is if Visma try again and risk being embarrassed or try again on stages 19 and 20.
Where is risking of being embarassed out there? There's nothing embarassing in being noticably weaker than Pogacar. Making some suicide moves and attacking from 100km to go with an aim of exploding the race and then missing 2nd place is just dumb. Visma are very very distant to what they were capable of in the Tour 2022. Jorgenson is OK, Wout is clearly not there. I have a feeling he can't recover from overloading. In 2021-2022 he was racing on nearly Pogacar's level with even crazier intensity: best breakaway-specialist, 1st on Ventoux, strongest time-trialist, stellar climbing domestic, all the relentless attacking... No one can race like this for long.
 
Where is risking of being embarassed out there? There's nothing embarassing in being noticably weaker than Pogacar. Making some suicide moves and attacking from 100km to go with an aim of exploding the race and then missing 2nd place is just dumb. Visma are very very distant to what they were capable of in the Tour 2022. Jorgenson is OK, Wout is clearly not there. I have a feeling he can't recover from overloading. In 2021-2022 he was racing on nearly Pogacar's level with even crazier intensity: best breakaway-specialist, 1st on Ventoux, strongest time-trialist, stellar climbing domestic, all the relentless attacking... No one can race like this for long.
Lets see how Van Aert goes in the Olympics. He might just be preserving energy.

There is not much he could have done here anyway with the outcome that we have or seen.

Vinge is still better than ever in all of this. Despite his crash and missing time.

However, what might be worrying for Van Aert is that neither Laporte or Van Baarle are any good this year. Mind you, they have had some bad luck. Or have they all burned out? What comes with it physically and mentally? They have hit their ceiling? Could it be more of a case that others have caught up and even surpassed them? These questions are probably treading the line of belonging in another part of the forum, but something to think about at least.

But as said, we will have to see Van Aert in Olympics. It could just be a case of sitting up early this edition and saying "I am not doing it this time" to not be too tired for his main objective.
 
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Last year it was Pogacar's preparation and wrist injury which led to his downfall. He was overdone in the lead up with all the classics and his training also in part focused on winning Flanders.

He probably thought he was still better than Vingegaard but was proven wrong.

Pogacar's season up to his injury:
Whilst Vingegaard was only focused on one thing.
Don't you think it's a bit unfair to Vingegaard to state that he only focused on one thing, when he won Camino, Basque Country and Dauphiné, finished 3rd in Paris-Nice and had 11 wins before the Tour started?

Sure, your point is valid, but if you don't count Camino, Paris-Nice, Basque Country and Dauphiné for Vingegaard, why should Jaen, Andalucia, Paris-Nice, E3, Amstel and Fleche count for Pogacar?
 
Don't you think it's a bit unfair to Vingegaard to state that he only focused on one thing, when he won Camino, Basque Country and Dauphiné, finished 3rd in Paris-Nice and had 11 wins before the Tour started?

Sure, your point is valid, but if you don't count Camino, Paris-Nice, Basque Country and Dauphiné for Vingegaard, why should Jaen, Andalucia, Paris-Nice, E3, Amstel and Fleche count for Pogacar?
Well he did only focus on one thing which was stage racing. You prepare differently for classics, especially races like San Remo, E3 and Flanders. Not that there's any harm in that, I would have done exactly the same if I was Vingegaard - focusing on what I am best on.
 
No doubt, both Pogacar and Vinegaard need a perfect preparation to win the Tour and the last year's edition indicated this very prominently. Yes, to beat the likes of Landa, Carapaz, Thomas, Yates Pogi doesn't need a training base, perhaps he doesn't even needs training session whatsoever lol, but with Vinegaard it's a completely different story. They are very close. Although, anyone of us know who would be a top favourite providing both start the Tour in the best form possible.
 
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Don't you think it's a bit unfair to Vingegaard to state that he only focused on one thing, when he won Camino, Basque Country and Dauphiné, finished 3rd in Paris-Nice and had 11 wins before the Tour started?

Sure, your point is valid, but if you don't count Camino, Paris-Nice, Basque Country and Dauphiné for Vingegaard, why should Jaen, Andalucia, Paris-Nice, E3, Amstel and Fleche count for Pogacar?

Those races are in preparation for the TdF.

Stage races that Pogacar did was also for TdF.

So I treat them as "equal" (for a lack of a better word) preparation for both men.

But Pogacar did ADDITIONALLY train for the classics, which is not completely ideal for the Tdf when compared to Vingegaard's methodical approach to his preparation for the MAIN OBJECTIVE being the TdF.