Jonas Vingegaard Just Won the Criterium du Dauphiné. Can He Win the Tour?
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Reigning Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard spent most of last week putting the cycling world on notice as he dominated the Criterium du Dauphiné, the long-standing precursor to the Tour.
By the time the eight-stage Dauphine finished, the 26-year-old Danish star was two-minutes-and-twenty-three-seconds clear of UAE Team Emirates’ Adam Yates and two-minutes-and-fifty-six-seconds clear of Ben O’Connor of AG2R Citroën. It was the largest margin of victory in the Dauphiné in twenty years.
The final stage featured a monstrous climb up to the Bastille Fortress, which came just after the riders climbed the fabled Col de Porte. Yates attacked on the latter, but could not hang on the Porte, as Vingegaard followed eventual stage winner, Trek-Segafredo’s Giulio Ciccone, up the ultra-steep climb.
Vingegaard crossed the line twenty-two seconds behind Ciccone, locking in his third WorldTour stage-race victory (in addition to being the defending Tour de France champion, Vingegaard won this April’s six-stage Itzulia Basque Country).
This race is a Tour de France preview
Given the race’s parcours over some of the most brutal corners of the Alps, combined with it being scheduled weeks before the Tour de France, the Dauphiné is regarded as being the biggest indicator to what we can expect in the Tour.
With his performance last week, Vingegaard did a lot to silence any doubters, especially those who wondered whether his quiet spring was the right move.
It also further sets the stage for one of the most anticipated matchups in recent cycling history; Vingegaard versus Pogačar, the Tour’s two overwhelming favorites.
It’s a battle that many of us have been eagerly anticipating for almost a year now. And now, thanks to the popularity of the Netflix series Tour de France:Unchained, which—among a dozen other stories—tells of Vingegaard’s storybook win over Pog in last year’s Tour, it’s one that a whole new crop of bike racing fans is looking forward to.
Can Vingegaard beat Pogačar at the Tour de France?
The wrist Pogačar fractured at this year’s Liège-Bastonge-Liège will no doubt play heavily into the storyline of the two lightweight heavyweights. But if we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that betting against Tadej Pogačar is often an exercise in futility.
But just a few days ago, after weeks spent working out on the trainer in his kitchen, the Slovenian wunderkind was cleared by doctors to resume his full training regimen. According to a recent report by Cycling News, Pogačar headed to the Italian Alpine resort Sestrière alongside Yeats and another of his key domestiques, Rafał Majka, to start reconning and preparing for the Tour in earnest.
As for Vingegaard, he’s taking a few days off before turning his own final screws to prepare for the Grand Départ on July 1.
Asked how he was feeling after the Dauphiné, Vingegaard exuded some of his now-trademark quiet self-assuredness, while promising that we haven’t quite seen everything he’s capable of.
“I would have confidence in myself,” he said. “But I do still think I can get a little bit better.”
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