Jonas Vingegaard finished seventh on stage 10 of the 2026 Tour de France, 44 seconds behind Tadej Pogačar, who won in Le Lioran. The former now lies 3:36 behind the latter overall, in second place. The Dane also lost at least 10 seconds to Remco Evenepoel, Paul Seixas and Florian Lipowitz, and a few to Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose.
This was not a good day for Visma-Lease a Bike‘s Vingegaard. It might not have been the kind of stage that perfectly suited him, with a series of short, sharp climbs in the Massif Central, but he already could not afford to be losing more time at this year’s Tour, and he did. It was telling that defeat came two years on from when Vingegaard beat Pogačar on the same finish line. Then, the race felt alive. Now, it feels almost over.
And yet, the message that Visma-Lease a Bike gave out post-stage was not one of despondency, or shifting goals – it was an attempt to be positive, to look for the light. Of course, they could hardly declare the race over, or show too much weakness, but on a day when Pogačar crushed all again, the message felt out of place.
To the viewers, to the fans, the reality feels clear: barring accident, injury or illness, Pogačar will win this Tour de France. To pretend otherwise feels fantastical. But Visma-Lease a Bike are refusing to totally surrender hope.
“In the end, I think it was not too bad of a day,” Vingegaard said post-stage. “Shorter climbs like this never suit me the best, so obviously, I had to fight today. To come away with a smaller loss like this is something I can be happy with.”
He added: “I think my legs are getting better and better, and all the long climbs are coming.”
The words were slightly different to the mood, with Vingegaard not seeming loquacious, looking pensive as he warmed down on his time trial bike outside the Visma team bus. His answer to a simple, soft-ball question of “what’s next” was terse: “I’m going to sleep tonight and there’s a stage tomorrow.”
Vingegaard, the Giro d’Italia winner, does still sit second overall, and perhaps not losing too much time is something to be happy with, but these do not feel like the words of a relentless winner. Evenepoel is now just 30 seconds behind, lurking.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“It was a very hard day,” Marc Reef, the Visma-Lease a Bike sports director, said post-stage. “Jonas did a great job, he fought all the way to the line, but Pogačar was stronger. We did not see it [the attack], we heard it, and the next moment we heard something was that there was a time gap to Jonas. From that moment on, we tried to motivate him, he’s been in this situation before in this stage two years ago. All the rest stayed in his wheel, and we knew that they could work together to close the gap.
“On the last climb, the gap increased again and it was difficult to come. I think the others are riding for the podium, and that’s their decision. We are here to win and that’s why we motivated Jonas to keep fighting to the line, and that’s what he did. No regrets.
“At this moment Pogačar is a lot stronger and big congrats to him, but we’re not in Paris yet and we’ll keep fighting,” he added. Asked if the team should be looking up, not down towards other threats to second place, Reef said: “It’s too early to say something about that now.”
Sepp Kuss, one of Vinegaard’s key lieutenants, did sound more realistic, however. Asked if he could see a way through Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, the American said: “At the moment, no. They were riding incredibly strong and they have the strongest rider too. So we just have to keep trying and stick to our plan and stick to our strengths and see if things come out for us on the stages that suit us.”
Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike cannot come out and give up in their fight against Pogačar. However, with the battle only heading one way, and 11 stages still to come, how much longer can they say they are fighting for yellow with a straight face? We might know by the end of the week.
