Pogacar vs. Vingegaard rivalry returns during TDF
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Dave Brailsford is back leading Ineos Grenadiers on the hunt for Tour de France stage wins
It has been only a month since Dave Brailsford was jettisoned from his role as Manchester United auditor, having ruffled plenty of feathers in the corridors of Old Trafford and Carrington in his bid to revive a great sporting institution. Now the former cycling supremo is back in the saddle just in time for the Tour de France as Ineos Grenadiers seek their own renaissance. 'He's like a kid in a sweet shop, talking about climbs and getting back to the mountains,' revealed team CEO John Allert. 'That's the battlefield that he knows and loves. We have welcomed him back into the team with open arms. He's a not-so-secret weapon for us to use and we plan on using him to the fullest extent we can.' Brailsford spearheaded British Cycling's Olympic success in Beijing and London before taking charge of Team Sky and masterminding their domination of the Tour during the 20-teens, winning the race with Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome four times, Geraint Thomas and then Egan Bernal under the Ineos rebrand, although the glorious era was tainted by accusations the team 'crossed an ethical line'. His arrival at Old Trafford was not universally appreciated, and he clashed with staff at the club during his efforts to improve processes behind the scenes. Now Ineos owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has redeployed Brailsford to his beleaguered cycling team, who are without a grand tour win in four years and have little hope of claiming the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, which begins in Lille on Saturday. The long-term task to regenerate the team as regular Tour de France podium-botherers is enormous after losing so much ground to the modern alphas of the peloton, Visma Lease-a-Bike and UAE Team Emirates. 'It's obvious we want to win the Tour, but there's no point just saying you want to win it,' said Allert. 'We've got to do more than we're doing, clearly, to get better than the people that are dominating it at the moment.' But in the short term, winning a couple of stages at this year's race would at least show that Ineos can compete and come out on top, if not over three weeks then in selected moments. 'Winning stages is going to be really important,' added sport director Zak Dempster. 'I think we need to be realistic in GC [general classification], but I think we need to be brave and bold and move the race where we can, and hopefully take time in creative ways. It's no secret that, face to face, there are guys who are stronger than us, that's the reality. But at the same time if we're smart then nothing's out of the question in terms of GC.' Thomas is riding in his final Tour and will largely play a support role behind team leader Carlos Rodriguez, who finished fifth two years ago, although the 39-year-old Welshman would love one last stage win to go with the three on his palmares from 2017 and 2018, the year he won the yellow jersey. 'I'd love to be competitive and go for a stage, a stage win would be amazing,' Thomas said. 'You've got to be in super great condition for that. And then obviously being alongside Carlos deep into the mountains and helping him as much as I can, off the bike as much as on it. He knows what he's doing anyway, but I think just playing a role in the team of just trying to share my wisdom – sounds a bit... but you know what I mean.' Thomas abandoned last month's Tour de Suisse after twisting his knee in a crash, but played down concerns over his fitness before the race. 'I got my foot caught and twisted, and I also hurt my hamstring and calf. The idea was to rest up properly and be ready to go again rather than continue to race and possibly make it worse or tweak something else. I got some good training in afterwards behind the motorbike, I've done the best I could. 'It was frustrating because it would have been nice to see exactly where I was at compared to everyone else rather than just training. But no issues now.' Ineos's best chance of a stage win may come in the first of two individual time trials on this year's course, through Italian time-trial specialist Filippo Ganna, who has seven stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and one at the Vuelta a Espana, but still needs a victory at the Tour de France to complete the grand-tour set. 'Maybe the first days we try to be more conservative, try to go all-in for the TT, and then after that's the start 100 per cent of my Tour,' Ganna said. 'I would like to try [and win a stage]. Why not this year?' Ineos Grenadiers at 2025 Tour de France Thymen Arensman, Tobias Foss, Filippo Ganna, Axel Laurance, Carlos Rodriguez, Connor Swift, Geraint Thomas, Samuel Watson.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Allegations against Ineos's David Rozman put Team Sky's entire legacy under the microscope
In the soft-focus documentary which follows Team Sky during their hugely successful 2012 season, when Bradley Wiggins wins the Tour de France, we are told a story of what can be achieved when good clean British ingenuity takes on the world's most morally bankrupt sport. Dave Brailsford's colleagues swoon over the benefits of their team principal's 'marginal gains' ploy; colour-coded water bottles, standardised seat heights, a luxury bus: they all count. In one clip, team chef Soren Kristiansen cheers his energy-conserving food programme while chopping some aubergines. In another, team physio Dan Guillemette lauds their 'really good' pillows. 'That's the whole thing about marginal gains,' he says, after tucking in the sleep-enhancing sheets beneath a hypoallergenic mattress. 'On their own they probably don't make a great deal of difference, but add them together and that's the difference between this team and our rivals.' But what we later discovered was that the pillows and the power food were supplemented by a ploy to exploit grey areas in the rules, according to a 54-page report by a parliamentary select committee, which concluded that Wiggins used triamcinolone before major races to enhance performance, questioned Brailsford's 'winning clean' ethos and accused Team Sky of 'crossing an ethical line' by cynically exploiting therapeutic use exemptions. Team Sky, who later became Ineos, have always maintained that they have stuck to the rules, and Wiggins has vehemently denied wrongdoing, as have his teammates who included fellow yellow jersey winners Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. But fresh revelations over the past week have restored the spotlight on Sky's era of success. David Rozman, a long-term member of the team's staff, left this year's Tour de France mid-race after allegations by Germany TV station ARD that, in 2012, he exchanged messages with Mark Schmidt, a notorious German doping doctor who was convicted in 2021 of leading a sophisticated doping ring involving multiple cyclists and skiers. Rozman is a team 'carer' – essentially an assistant who carries out rider massages among other support duties – and worked closely with Wiggins and Froome during his career. Some of the messages were published by The Times. They included a text, allegedly from Rozman to Schmidt, sent one month before the 2012 Tour de France won by Wiggins, which read: 'Do you still have any of the stuff that Milram [Schmidt's disgraced former team] used during the races? If so, can you bring it for the boys?' Then, during the Tour, the day before Froome won on La Planche des Belle Filles and Wiggins claimed the yellow jersey, it is alleged that text messages reveal how Schmidt visited Team Sky's hotel to meet Rozman. In another message, Rozman sent Schmidt the contact details for a suspected drug dealer, based in Slovenia and codenamed Maestro Baltazar, who was allegedly in the business of supplying banned substances. The International Testing Agency is investigating the case. Rozman is yet to speak publicly about the claims, and The Independent has approached him for comment. Ineos Grenadiers said in a statement: 'To date the team has received no evidence from any relevant authority. In response to the team's request for information, the ITA has advised the team that it cannot share any further information, due to legal and confidentiality restrictions. Both David [Brailsford] and the team will of course cooperate with the ITA and any other authority. The team reiterates its zero-tolerance policy and is unable to comment further at this time.' Brailsford was the genius hand pulling every string of Sky's great era, giving every department unwavering focus, unity and direction, from medical and nutrition to strategy and performance, to the riders themselves on the road. He returned to the Tour de France this month after his brief foray into football with Manchester United, but refused to answer any questions on the Rozman issue, telling journalists: 'No comment, and adding when they persisted: 'F****** come on guys.' Rozman may be cleared of wrongdoing. Or he may be found guilty and then simply be dismissed as a rogue operator, a bad apple in the bunch. After all, there are skeletons on most team buses in this sport, one where an eye-watering number of alleged, accused or admitted dopers are still employed among top teams. But then you remember that culture, media and sport committee report, and the whistleblower who alleged Wiggins and several teammates were using corticosteroids out of competition 'to lean down in preparation for major races'. You remember that so little of what went on can be examined because team doctor Richard Freeman destroyed his laptop with a blunt instrument and failed to keep adequate records; you remember Geert Leinders, who worked with Team Sky in 2012, and who was later banned for life for multiple doping violations from 1996-2009 on a previous team. And now we have the unproven allegations against Rozman. As a British cycling fan, it was hard not to feel smug watching their decade of dominance. This was a sport that the British had no hand in – road cycling didn't begin in Britain, it wasn't codified by the British, and it was rarely won by British riders, let alone a British team. Brailsford and Team Sky changed all that, taking a grip of the Tour de France peloton with the kind of carefully calibrated control that irked many of those in the sport's heartlands. Now it is hard not to feel disconsolate. Rozman may be exonerated, Team Sky reprieved. But the scrutiny on that era remains more than a decade later, like a knife scratching at the story's edges, chipping away at what we thought we knew. The outcome of the ITA's investigation could rewrite the legacy.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Idaho's Matteo Jorgenson gave it all for a Tour de France he could never win
Tadej Pogačar's victory looked certain as he flew up Butte Montmartre for the second of three times on the Tour de France's final stage. His lead in the race's general classification (GC) stood at four minutes and 27 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard, more than 10 minutes clear of everybody else, and GC times had been frozen for the final stage. He had won four stages already; that he hadn't won at least six seemed more his choice than anybody else's. There was no need to be at the front here, to add a fifth cherry atop the ice cream, but Pogačar's unquenchable competitive spirit demanded an attempt. He stamped on his pedals on the cobblestoned hill, scything riders off the back of the bunch. By the time he crested Montmartre, he had just four others for company. Among them were the American Matteo Jorgenson and Wout van Aert, both of Vingegaard's Visma Lease-a-Bike team. Thanks to superb climbing performances and helming the deepest team in the race, Vingegaard managed to defeat Pogačar at the 2022 and 2023 Tours de France – given Pogačar's dominance since, these Tours now feel like distant memories from an obsolete world. Back then, Visma used Pogačar's raw aggression against him. With the knowledge that he would respond to every acceleration, Vingegaard and his teammates threw jab after jab and Pogačar exhausted himself trying to counter with haymakers. Pogačar – already an all-time-great cyclist – responded by simply eradicating any trace of weakness. In the 2024 Tour and the first 20 stages of the 2025 event, Pogačar looked invincible. He hadn't been dropped once. Most teams didn't even think of trying to unseat him, so pointless their resistance would be. The peloton can resemble a living thing, a giant vibrating insect with shimmering, multicolored scales. For all its beauty, no part of it stood up to Pogačar. Vingegaard was the only rider who could feasibly compete. Given how comfortably Pogačar beat him in 2024, he would need even more help from his team than before. Jorgenson intended to provide just that. It's baked into his job title, domestique, the French word for servant. If the Tour were a battlefield, the Idaho-bred Jorgenson would be on a suicide mission to engage Pogačar for as long as possible before he inevitably met his end. Any selfish goals he may have had were irrelevant. For the first four days of the Tour, Visma riders tried to surprise Pogačar with unusually timed accelerations on the flats, on the downhills, and into fierce sidelong wind. Jorgenson, to present a credible dummy target, tried to stick as close as possible to Pogačar in the overall standings. That way, Pogačar would be obligated to follow the American's attacks as well as Vingegaard's, leaving him potentially overextended. Pogačar casually fended off the Visma assault while simultaneously battling Mathieu van der Poel, a far heavier, more natural sprinter, in short dashes to the line. Van der Poel won their first duel on Stage 2; outsprinting him appeared a bridge too far for even Pogačar. All of two stages later, Pogačar exacted revenge. Vingegaard was behind in the sprints, but managed to stay eight seconds behind Pogacar through four stages, and Jorgenson 19. Visma's plan had yet to produce the desired result, but hadn't gone badly wrong either. Then on stage five's time trial, Vingegaard and Jorgenson dropped more than one minute each to Pogačar, rendering all the efforts of the previous four days irrelevant. Stage 12's hulking Hautacam was the most difficult climb yet; Pogačar chiseled two more minutes out of Vingegaard and 10 from Jorgenson. That was the end of any illusions that Jorgenson could be a general classification contender. With plan A vaporized, Visma tried to win individual stages. (Their Simon Yates had won stage 10, but it felt almost incidental.) On the queen stage of the race, Jorgenson stuck to the lead group, then formed a breakaway with two other riders as the rest jousted cagily at the foot of the unforgiving Col de la Loze. When Jorgenson fell back midway up the vertiginous slope, it looked like he had been instructed to wait for Vingegaard. Instead, Vingegaard's group caught him and went past. Jorgenson was empty. Related: Idaho-bred Matteo Jorgenson is big – and getting bigger in cycling's biggest races Such was Pogačar's dominance that when he grimaced in pain while following a Vingegaard attack on Mont Ventoux, I felt a genuine, if pathetic, thrill. Pogačar had shown so little mortality on the preceding stages that he had shifted the benchmarks for entertainment. In lieu of seeing him get dropped, I would accept a warped facial expression. It allowed a momentary dream of tighter competition before Pogačar whizzed clear on yet another sprint. Jorgenson's plight seemed even direr than Vingegaard's, who had seen his once-brilliant rivalry with Pogačar decimated by the latter's evolution. Though he failed to land a single meaningful blow on his foe, Vingegaard's efforts earned him praise. Jorgenson, meanwhile, disappeared silently on the slopes each day. He was emptying his reserves on stage after stage, seemingly to little effect for a hopeless purpose. With two stages left, Jorgenson admitted he had been tussling with bronchitis the previous week. What was this tall, sick man doing, trying to climb as fast as the wraiths around him? In 2023, Sepp Kuss, Visma's most dependable domestique, rode his way into the red leader's jersey at the Vuelta a España. Though he wasn't the best rider on his team, it stood to reason that Visma would throw their weight behind him given his lead. They eventually did, helping ensure Kuss' victory, but not before team leaders Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic initiated infighting that suggested they would rip the jersey from Kuss' back if given the chance. 'I had to give something up of my own ambitions to help them,' Kuss later said of his years as a domestique. 'Whether they needed my help or not, I don't know. Maybe they never did.' He laughed, but beneath the mirth is a frightening sentiment: the idea that those generous, painful sacrifices made no difference. At this year's Tour, Jorgenson looked into a darker crisis – Vingegaard needed all the help he could get, and Jorgenson couldn't give it. Maybe he could help someone else. With Vingegaard's GC bid doomed, Visma aimed at securing a final stage win, likely with Wout van Aert, whose plentiful horsepower suited short, punchy climbs like Montmartre. On the flats ahead of the third trip up Montmartre's jangly cobbles, Jorgenson began attacking the group. Pogačar followed each time, but on a slight delay. It was as if his legs needed a few seconds to overcome their fatigue before spurring into blurred motion. Though Visma's pecking and poking throughout the Tour hadn't resulted in any time profits, they had contributed to exhausting Pogačar. Jorgenson remained deathly loyal to that tactic. But still Pogačar had the energy to take the lead on the climb itself and further whittle down the survivors. As the top of the hill approached, van Aert suddenly thundered ahead of Pogačar, pushing his pedals so hard I could imagine the bike frame snapping beneath the strain. As van Aert sustained his violent effort all the way up, gradually, impossibly, Pogačar fell behind. Jorgenson had finally taken enough bites out of him that somebody else could draw blood, he'd shown that Pogačar still could bleed. Van Aert joyfully coasted across the finish line well ahead of the others, who, realizing the futility of chasing the rocket in front of them, had given up the chase. Pogačar rolled through the line with a finger held aloft in celebration of his fourth Tour de France victory. Jorgenson followed behind quietly, his agonizing, selfless job done and done well.
