The words of Pogacar and Vingegaard after the Ventoux

It was one of the most waited stages of this Tour de France, with the grand finale on Mont Ventoux, and the expectations were not disappointed. Only 2 seconds separated Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard at the finish line, but the show they put on was one of the best in recent years.

The Dane attacked the Slovenian 3 or 4 times, also with the help of his teammates who had previously gone on the break, and the world champion responded with two attacks of his own, the last one just before the finish, which allowed him to gain only 2 seconds. Below you can find their words after the stage:

POGACAR
“Jonas really tried today. They rode pretty well as a team, but fortunately I had better legs than in 2021 and I managed to keep up with Jonas’s accelerations. I’m happy with my performance today because I managed to defend the yellow jersey as we had planned in the morning. Today there was only one climb: an all‑out effort from the bottom to the top. The next few days will have several climbs and will be more demanding physically.

We let Pavel Sivakov and Marc Soler go in the break because we weren’t too interested in the stage, and if we had to face the climb, we had Tim and Adam plus the option to call them back. Then Visma was very aggressive and we almost caught the break. One kilometer from the finish we saw the breakaway riders, but not even Superman could have caught them. Congratulations to Valentin Paret‑Peintre: he deserved the victory; it’s on these long climbs that he gives his best. Personally, I was focused on Jonas, nothing else.

Jonas and I will race against each other all the way to Paris. It was a very hard stage, especially after a rest day, and I’m happy to have gotten through it. I don’t think we could have gone much faster today. Jonas and his team set a great pace, from the bottom and also later with the two men in the break. This is the limit of how fast we could go.”

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VINGEGAARD
“I felt really good today. So I’m happy with the sensations and with the attacks I was able to make. Of course, I didn’t gain time, but it’s something that gives me a lot of motivation. We wanted to have someone up the road and the team was fantastic. Everyone gave everything they had, there was great commitment from everyone, and everyone rode really fast again today. Pogacar followed me on every attack and I responded to his. I didn’t see any weaknesses, but at least feeling good gives me motivation and I will keep trying.”

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