Jonas Vingegaard has explained that his lack of interest in collaborating with Tadej Pogačar during the Tour de France gravel stage 9 on Sunday, when the two managed to drop the rest of the GC rivals, was based on a team strategy of always remaining with his teammates for as long as possible.
On a day when Pogačar went on the rampage on multiple occasions, repeatedly stringing out the field, and trying to drop his rivals, Vingegaard recognised to reporters that it would have been ideal for him, too, to collaborate with Pogačar to take more time on their joint rivals Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Both Evenepoel and Roglič were distanced when Vingegaard bridged across - with some assistance from Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte - to one of Pogačar’s most ferocious attacks. On other occasions, it was just Roglič who was dropped.
