2023-07-23 19:44:58
Dane Jonas Vingegaard won his second consecutive Tour de France on Sunday in Paris after the 21st and final stage won by Belgian Jordi Meeus on the Champs-Élysées. Like last year, the leader of the Jumbo-Visma team, 26, leads the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE) with a comfortable margin of 7 minutes and 29 seconds, the widest gap since 2014. Briton Adam Yates (UAE) completes the podium.
Published on: 07/23/2023 – 19:44Modified on: 07/23/2023 – 19:52
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The authoritarian way with which the leader of Jumbo-Visma knocked out the Tour 2023 contrasts with his slender silhouette and his shy character.
At 26, the former employee of a fish market has asserted himself, given confidence by his victory last year. Even if he remains a man and a fundamentally discreet runner who flees light and society. But on the asphalt, the Dane made everyone agree in an extremely tough Tour de France, both in terms of the profile of the course and the speed with which the peloton swallowed him.
The first two weeks were as exciting as they were deceptive. From the first stage in Bilbao, the two favorites engaged in a standoff which has long been so close that we thought at one time that it was going to be settled in the octagon of the Champs-Élysées.
Fire, the inseparable
The two men went blow for blow. Vingegaard won the first heat at Marie-Blanque. Pogacar the second in Cauterets-Cambasque, followed by a few memorable draws, in Puy-de-Dôme, in the Grand Colombier or in Morzine, between two champions who were then called “the inseparable”.
And then no. Exhausted after a truncated preparation because of his wrist fracture at the end of April, Pogacar gave up in two stages. During the Combloux time trial on Tuesday. Then the next day in the queen stage to Courchevel where the Slovenian experienced the worst failure of his life, summed up by these few words: “I’m gone, I’m dead” (“I let go, I died”).
The intensity of the duel then gave way to the time of suspicion when Vingegaard had to answer questions about doping every day, resurfacing without any tangible element, but inevitable in a sport long plagued by business.
« I don’t take anything that I won’t give to my daughter.” of two years, assured the Dane, the boss of his team, Richard Plugge, even adding that his runner was reluctant to take ” paracetamol “. To explain the domination of his champion, Plugge referred both to the supposed insufficiencies of the competition, in this case the riders of the Groupama-FDJ team who would drink ” great beers during rest days, which French manager Marc Madiot vehemently denied.
Vingegaard at the Vuelta
But also to the perfection of their own methods, in terms of nutrition, training, equipment, etc. “They are the best in everything “, assured Tom Dumoulin, their ex-champion who became a consultant. ” I’m not much stronger than last year, but I continued to progress and I didn’t experience, unlike 2022, any health problems during the spring “, also insisted Vingegaard.
His triumph confirms the victory of a strategy entirely focused on the Tour, with long courses at altitude and the Critérium du Dauphiné as the only springboard, while Pogacar scrapped on the front lines of the Italian and Belgian classics.
« I like to run on all terrains. It matches who I am “, explained the Slovenian, winner in particular of Paris-Nice, the Tour of Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race this season and who is thinking about ” new challenges ” for the next year.
Sunday morning, Vingegaard announced that he will also participate in the Vuelta at the end of August to attempt a double with the Tour de France / Tour of Spain which has not been achieved since Christopher Froome in 2017.
(With AFP)
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