Another rest day in the yellow jersey and another carefully curated interaction with media at the Tour de France for Jonas Vingegaard. Like in Clermont-Ferrand a week ago, Jumbo-Visma again opted against making Vingegaard available for a press conference in Saint Gervais on Monday, preferring instead to release a short video interview with the Dane in the early evening.
Tadej Pogačar, who held his usual rest day press conference in mid-afternoon, might have pressed ahead in any notional contest for the Prix Orange [prize for the most likeable rider -ed] by now, but Vingegaard remains in front in their duel for the Tour itself, carrying a slender lead into the final week of the race.
After 2,606 kilometres of racing, only 10 seconds divide the two favourites, and there was precious little to separate them over three successive days in the mountains at the end of the second week. Pogačar snatched a handful of seconds on the Grand Colombier, Vingegaard snared a bonus on the Col de Joux Plane, and they broke even on the road to Saint Gervais-Mont Blanc on Sunday.
Speaking in the video interviews, recorded for Jumbo-Visma by Sporza and TV2, Vingegaard repeated his previous suggestion that the margin between the top two, whatever their final order, would be rather more emphatic by the time they reached Paris.
"It will be hard to tell. But I still think at one point, especially with the time trial and the stages coming up, I don't believe it will be a matter of seconds," Vingegaard said. "It could be less than a minute, for sure. But yeah, I don't think it will be a matter of five seconds. I could not imagine. But I guess we'll see in Paris."
Of the six days remaining on this Tour, three stand out as the obvious places where Vingegaard and Pogačar's duel will be won and lost, namely Tuesday's stage 16 time trial to Combloux, the following day's demanding Alpine leg over the Col de la Loze, and the potentially explosive run through the Vosges on the penultimate day.
"It's only my third Tour de France, and for sure it's been the hardest one so far," said Vingegaard, who placed second behind Pogačar on his debut in 2021 before defeating the Slovenian a year ago. "It's really hard to say now who's going to win. It's so close, it's a really big fight."
The 22.4km of time trialling from Passy to Combloux might offer a wider degree of separation in a contest that has been far too close to call to this point. The Tour's lone time trial seems destined to take on outsized significance in the battle for final overall victory.
"I think it will be very important," Vingegaard said. "There are only 10 seconds between us, so it could very well become decisive. Anyway, I will do my best. And of course, there are also two hard stages in addition to the time trial, where you can make a huge difference. But I think that the time trial tomorrow will be very decisive."
Pogačar has a 6-3 record against Vingegaard in time trials over the years, though the Dane's improvements against the watch were clear at last year's Tour, where he would have won the penultimate stage in Rocamadour had he not slowed to present victory to teammate Wout van Aert.
The Dane reconnoitered the stage 16 time trial earlier in the season and he maintained that it suited his characteristics. "I think it is a good route for me. I like the routes where it's not just flat road and straight for 50 kilometres," Vingegaard said. "I like a change of pace and there will be some of that tomorrow."
The softly-spoken Vingegaard is not much given to boastfulness, but he has never shied away from pointing repeatedly to his qualities of endurance as a potentially decisive factor in this Tour. He has previously suggested that the positioning of this time trial in the third week time trial would play to his strengths rather than to Pogačar's, though he adopted a cautious line on Monday.
"It is hard to say. If you had asked me before, I would have said yes. But I think we seem very, very similar, so it can be difficult to guess," he said. "I think we've been very even so far, so I wouldn't be surprised if we were tomorrow, too."
