Tadej Pogacar gains 6 seconds on Jonas Vingegaard. He won most of their Tours.
Jonas Vingegaard took the lead when Visma won the opening team time trial in Barcelona. He kept it on stage 2 as Tadej Pogacar won back 6 seconds.
What happened
Vingegaard narrowly defended yellow on Montjuic as Pogacar’s late acceleration set up Isaac del Toro’s stage win and clawed back six seconds.
The 113th Tour de France started on with a 19.6km team time trial around Barcelona. Visma-Lease a Bike won it, so Jonas Vingegaard took the first yellow jersey, worn by the race leader.
Vingegaard led Tadej Pogacar by 12 seconds after day one, and Filippo Ganna by 8. Under the rules of this stage, the overall standings used each rider’s own time.
Stage 2, 168.5km from Tarragona back to Barcelona, finished on the climb to the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic. Pogacar’s team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, controlled the end of the race. Pogacar started the sprint, then eased up in the last metres and let his teammate Isaac del Toro cross the line first. It gave Del Toro a stage win in his first Tour.
Pogacar took six bonus seconds, time taken off for finishing near the front, out of Vingegaard. Vingegaard finished fourth and kept yellow by the narrowest of margins.
The race ends in Paris on , after 3,321km from Barcelona. The first rest day is , after stage 9. Pogacar is the four-time and defending champion. Vingegaard has won twice and has beaten him at this race before. The next three weeks decide whether the rivalry’s score moves to 5-2 or 4-3.
Sources: ESPN, Olympics.com
The Pattern
Pogacar won three of the five Tours both men finished since 2021. We looked at every Tour since then that both riders completed. In each one they finished first and second, and the rider who led the race going into the third week won it. We ask the same question as the first market: did Pogacar win the race? We used reports from ESPN and Olympics.com and the official results.
Show the other 3 cases
The Read
History leans to Pogacar, and so does the market at 47%. He is the four-time and defending champion and has won two Tours in a row. Stage 2 showed his team strong enough to control a finish and rich enough to give away stages. How he won back the six seconds matters more than the seconds. On a short uphill finish, Vingegaard could not follow him. In this rivalry, the rider who was sharper in the first week has tended to be stronger in the mountains in week three.
The case against is 2022 and 2023. Both times Vingegaard let Pogacar take early time and bonus seconds, then beat him in the high mountains in the third week, by 2:43 and 7:29. He already has yellow, and his team won the stage that opened the race. A 3-2 record between them is an open contest.
The record also has a weak spot built in. All five cases assume both men reach the third week. A crash could decide the question without either of them settling it on the road.
Disclaimer
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