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Jonas Vingegaard powered his way to the most impressive win of his professional career by stringing together a beautiful marriage of technical skill and physical power to take a dominant victory on stage 16 of the 2023 Tour de France in front of the stunning backdrop of the French Alps. Tadej Pogačar, Vingegaard’s only real GC rival at this point, lost a stunning 1’38 to the defending Tour champion after appearing slightly off-the-pace from the gun and saw his GC deficit blown open from 10-seconds to nearly two minutes at 1’48, with only a few days left to race. And, not only was the stage a practical defeat for Pogačar, but it was a symbolic one as well, since he was defeated by the same Jumbo-Visma team that he dealt a devastating blow to when he burst onto the scene three years ago by mowing down the then Jumbo, and Tour de France, leader Primož Roglič, with a spectacular performance in a third-week time trial to steal the Tour victory on the final day of GC racing.

The Jumbo-Visma team, who landed two riders on the stage podium due to Wout van Aert’s impressive ride into third place, will be happy with extending their race lead, but will also enter the remaining stages with a high level of awareness, since Pogačar, who now needs to make bold moves to take massive chunks of time back to challenge for the overall win, won’t hesitate to overturn the race at the first available opportunity.

Stage Top Three
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo) +0
2) Tadej Pogačar (UAE) +1’38
3) Wout van Aert (Jumbo) +2’51

Stage GC Gaps:
Vingegaard +0
Pogačar -1’38
S.Yates -2’58
A.Yates -3’12
Rodríguez -3’36
Kuss -3’40
Hindley -4’37

Current GC Top Five:
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo) +0
2) Tadej Pogačar (UAE) +1’48
3) Adam Yates (UAE) +8’52
4) Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos) +8’57
5) Jai Hindley (Bora) +11’15

Pogacar vs Vingegaard
22.4km-to-go: Right out of the gate, we see a massive difference in speed between the top two contenders. While Pogačar kind of ambles into the first corner…

…Vingegaard flies down the ramp and looks like he is on rails through the turn.

This means that after just a few hundred meters of racing, he is a full second ahead of his rival Pogačar.

15km: At the first time check, Pogačar is already 25 seconds down (3.6s per km) on Vingegaard, which is so drastic it almost seems like a timing mistake.

However, when we compare their form descending off the first climb, it is clear that Vingegaard is carrying far more speed through the corners and is in a far more ultra-tucked, extremely aerodynamic position than Pogačar.

5.6km: Pogačar waits until roughly half a kilometer into the final climb, when his speed is much slower and the penalty of stopping much lower, to make a bike change from his time trial, to road bike. The change is fairly quick and clean, but he is still stopped for roughly 12 full seconds, and also loses time due to having to get back up to speed.

Vingegaard flies through the same section of the road 31 seconds ahead of Pogačar (1.9s per km). He doesn’t stop for a bike change, likely due to his Cervelo TT bike being much lighter than Pogačar’s Colnago.

4km: Despite being on a less ideal machine, Vingegaard continues to carve time out of Pogačar on the climb and is up by 52 seconds (2.8s per km) after just a few kms.

2.8km: Pogačar comes into the third time check after the hardest 10% section of the climb with the fastest time of the day so far, but his body language and facial expression look almost like he is on a leisurely ride.

When Vingegaard comes through, his body language and facial expression are the exact opposite and we can see just how locked in Vingegaard is. He is still powering through the climb on his TT bike, and is now 1’05 up on Pogačar (3.6s per km), meaning he has significantly increased his gap on the climb, and is in the midst of one of the best time trial performances in Tour de France history.

1km: Pogačar goes into the final kilometer with the same casual, upright position

While Vingegaard powers through the same section of road in a fully tucked time trial position, having an aero advantage over the mild slopes of the final kilometer gives a massive advantage to Vingegaard due to his decision to stay on his TT bike.

Finish: Pogačar ambles up the final pitch and over the finish line over a minute ahead of Wout van Aert to briefly grab the fastest time of the day

But, this is incredibly short-lived, since, just 22 seconds later, Vingegaard powers through 1’38 faster than Pogačar to take the stage win and seal the most dominant time trial win in modern Tour de France history.

1) Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo team clearly knew this TT would decide the Tour and prepared accordingly

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