Faced with Tadej Pogacar, the impotence of Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike

What wouldn't you give to hear the instructions being piped into Jonas Vingegaard's earpiece by his team, Visma-Lease a Bike, on Thursday, July 24, during the ^18th stage of the 2025 Tour de France? The route between Vif (Isère) and the Col de la Loze (Savoie), with its three hors catégorie climbs and nearly 5,500 meters of elevation gain, seemed like the perfect playground for the leader of the Dutch team to gain time on Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), still (well) in the lead in the general classification.

But at the finish, the yellow jersey, second on Thursday behind Australian Ben O'Connor (Jayco-AlUla), further increased his lead over the Dane, third. Four minutes and 26 seconds in total now separate the two men with only one mountain stage remaining on Friday. " It was difficult to create gaps, I'm happy to still be in the lead and to have made up time ," said Tadej Pogacar. "It was a very good day."

A moment, almost theatrical, sums up the hushed struggle between the two riders: a tipping point 42.4 kilometers from the finish line where waiting, glances and the shadow of calculation took precedence over everything else. For 17 kilometers, they sized each other up, almost glaring at each other, transforming the hoped-for confrontation into a show of mutual observation, in the valley connecting the Col de la Madeleine to the Col de la Loze. "But what are they doing?" , the followers wonder, in a form of polite incomprehension. "It's a sketch..." , one of them says, his eyes glued to his phone at the moment of the final climb.

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