The overwhelming domination of Jonas Vingegaard on the Haute-Savoie time trial on Tuesday raises questions. The yellow jersey relegated his great rival Tadej Pogacar, with whom he had been sidelined for two weeks, to 1’38” over 22 kilometers. Wout van Aert, specialist in solo effort, took him 2’51” in the teeth. The boss of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, did not escape questions about the magnitude of this coup.
“It’s a crushing victory, which we did not expect,” he commented on France Info. Obviously, the questions are not illegitimate on the various suspicions, this is what the two champions were also able to say during the rest day. We’ve been living with that for a long time. ” The director of the Grande Boucle wanted to reassure the suspicious: ” The yellow jersey is tested every day, as the bikes are checked every day (…), by an independent agency, which was perhaps not the case before. »
But how to explain that Vingegaard stunned the competition so much, finishing three minutes earlier than the organization’s fastest forecast? “I can’t explain it to you except that there has been real progress over the past twenty years, especially on equipment,” replies Prudhomme.
“The riders have disc brakes and they go faster because they brake later. They were born with a diet which was in its infancy at the time, they are soldier monks today. They refuse the slightest deviation, even in December. That partly explains the performance, ”he adds.