With Jonas Vingegaard being more than three minutes in arrears to race leader Tadej Pogačar, the expectation has been that Visma-Lease a Bike would go on the offensive in the final two mountain stages of the Tour de France, aiming to repeat their team masterclasses of the past two editions which isolated Pogačar, ultimately leading to his defeat.
So when three of the team’s riders – Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte and Tiesj Benoot – were present in stage 17’s various large breakaways, a medium mountain stage in the Alps, there was surprise: were the Dutch team about to catch UAE Team Emirates off guard and claw back time on Pogačar earlier than they had anticipated? After all, they would no doubt have seen Pogačar’s rest day comments that he believed Visma would only attack on one of the three mountain days in the Alps.
