Jonas Vingegaard: I wasn’t on a good day, I had to switch my mindset

Jonas Vingegaard will not win the Tour de France for a third consecutive time this year as the Danish rider once again had to acknowledge the superiority of his rival Tadej Pogacar on the final climb of stage 19.

“I came to this Tour de France with the mindset to go for the win, but I also knew that it would be hard with the lack of preparation that I had,” Vingegaard said. “We knew it might be a possibility, so I was ready for it mentally.”

“I think Tadej is on a super high level. I was also on a super high level for the first two weeks and now a bit less,” Vingegaard said. “I think it’s normal with only one-and-a-half months of preparation that something would catch up with me. I always said from the start, it would be crazy if I could fight for the win with one-and-a-half months of preparation. I did it for two-and-a-half weeks. Now the fight for the win is over. But the fight for second and third is not over…”

“I wasn’t on a good day, and halfway through the stage, I had to switch my mindset from trying to go for the win,” Vingegaard said. “That was also why we had Matteo and Wilco in the break, to have satellite riders if I wanted to go. But I had to switch my mindset. Instead of attacking, I had to follow instead. I think tomorrow will probably be the same for me.

“I said before that I wanted to risk the second place for victory, but when you have the legs that I have at the moment you have to try to settle for second.”

“We saw in the last days that Pogacar is stronger,” Visma-Lease a Bike DS Gricha Niermann admitted. “We still had hope for today, but in the end, you have to be realistic. At the moment, Jonas is the second-best rider out there.”