Tour de France: Vingegaard v Pogacar - where the race for the yellow jersey will be won or lost in week two

Vingegaard carries a nine-second advantage over Pogacar heading into stage 10 which follows the first rest day.

What has happened so far

The first major blow of the race was dealt by Vingegaard who managed to gain a gap of one minute and four seconds on Pogacar over the final climb and 15km descent to the finish of stage five, leaving the Slovenian to respond: “Jonas just went so fast on the climb.”

It gave the 26-year old Dane a 53-second gap in the General Classification.

The following day Vingegaard started by stating that he was “super happy” with the outcome of stage five; following by saying that the team must stay “focused” throughout stage 6.

But the inevitable reaction came from Pogacar on the summit finish on stage six as he attacked with 2.8km’s to go to win the stage taking the bonus seconds and reducing Vingegaard’s lead to 25 seconds.

Two flat stages followed in which there was very little GC action but on the final stage before the first rest day Pogacar once again managed to ride away from his Jumbo-Visma rival and took another eight seconds out of the yellow jersey’s lead at the top of the Puy de Dôme on stage nine.

The week ahead

Moving forwards, Vingegaard has responded to losing time by saying “I think that there are stages that suit me better than this.”

Going into the hilly stage 10 on Tuesday, Vingegaard could be feeling confident about replicating his stage five attack with a category three climb followed by an almost 30km descent into the finish in Issoire.

The hilly parcours of the stage allows a good chance for punchy breakaway riders, potentially like Yorkshire’s Tom Pidcock for Ineos Grenadiers, however the long descent requires a brave and potentially unnecessarily risky move for the stage to impact the yellow jersey.

The next chance for the two main contenders to battle comes on stage 13 on Friday with the first Alpine summit finish up the Col Du Grand Colombier.

The only categorised climb of a fairly flat stage will require ‘full gas’ racing up the Hors Category climb in a stage that certainly isn’t one to be missed. At 137.8 km in total the stage promises to be a cracker in which the flat allows a breakaway to be controlled without expending too much energy before Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma and Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates head into the lower slopes of the 17.4km climb with a fresh full fleet of riders providing neither team loses any riders in the stage’s prior.

A maximum gradient of 12% just five kilometres into the Col will allow the teams to force the pace early on and help to limit the size of the large peloton before easing off to between 3% and 4% from 7km- 9km and then fluctuating between 3% and 9% for the next 10 kilometres then ramping up again to 8% in the final kilometre where the final attack will most likely land.

At the end of stage nine where Vingegaard lost more time to Pogacar, Vingegaard said in his media duties that he is “looking forward to coming into the Alps” suggesting that last year’s winner is targeting the region as the place to further establish his lead, while still showing that he is feeling assured of his lead despite being unable to follow his rival twice during the first week.

Although he is behind at the minute, two-time winner Pogacar, 23, looks confident attacking Vingegaard in what promises to be a thrilling duel for the yellow jersey over the next two weeks.