With his young fellow countryman Tadej Pogacar, yellow jersey carrier Primoz Roglic has a formidable challenger in the decisive days of the Tour de France, but at Jumbo-Visma they are confident that their leader can do something extra in the very tough final week.
“If you have prepared very well, the third week of the Tour is always decisive, then you have to put all your cards on the table. And Primoz will do that in the coming days”, sports director Merijn Zeeman of Jumbo-Visma says in conversation. with NU.nl. “He hasn’t wasted any energy yet, so I expect he will be very good in the final week.”
Roglic starts the last six stages with a lead of forty seconds on Pogacar, the number two in the standings. The difference with the other competitors has been more than a minute and a half, making it seem like a Slovenian battle for the overall victory.
“I absolutely expect that there will be a Slovenian in the yellow in Paris, I have a lot of confidence in that,” said Roglic. “We will know in a week’s time what name it will be. But I hope it is me.”
‘Lesser team Pogacar will not play a role’
Zeeman is not surprised that the only 21-year-old Pogacar is the biggest competitor of his leader, especially now that defending champion Egan Bernal lost more than seven minutes on the Grand Colombier. “We started with the idea that INEOS Grenadiers was the team we should be chasing, having won the Tour seven times in the last eight years.”
“But we always said it wasn’t just going to be a battle with INEOS. Pogacar was already very highly regarded by us, we knew he would be a very big rival.”
The number three of the Vuelta has the disadvantage that he does not have a strong team around him, especially after the failure of the Italian climbers Fabio Aru and Davide Formolo.
“But I don’t think that will play a role in the coming days,” said Zeeman. “Of course, if Pogacar breaks down, a good team could help him. But in the stages that are coming now, the best riders will eventually remain.”
‘We want to keep control’
From Tuesday there are three very tough stages through the Alps on the program, culminating in the 17th stage on Wednesday, with the finish on the new and no less than 2,304 high and 21.5 kilometer long Col de la Loze. Then there is a very difficult time trial on Saturday with the line at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles.
The question now is whether Jumbo-Visma will choose to develop a consistently high pace on the cols with his strong team in the last week, in the hope that one by one rivals will drop out. On Sunday the executioners of Robert Gesink, Wout van Aert, George Bennett and Tom Dumoulin killed Bernal and also Nairo Quintana.
“But that does not mean that we will continue to use that tactic in the coming days,” says Zeeman. “We really make a plan from day to day. And with that plan we want to keep control and create a situation that is good for us and that relies on happiness as little as possible.”
“So far that has worked very well; at the start of the Tour we immediately signed for the situation we are in now. And we are confident that we will also get through the last week well and finish it on Saturday in the time trial. . “
The sixteenth stage of the Tour starts on Tuesday at 1.20 pm in La Tour-du-Pin. The finish in Villard-de-Lans is expected between 5.20 pm and 5.55 pm.
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