'I could have been closer today' - Jonas Vingegaard loses more time to Tadej Pogačar on Tour de France stage seven

Visma-Lease a Bike leader trails race lead by 1:17

Jonas Vingegaard at the 2025 Tour de France
(Image credit: Getty Images)

It was the GC shoot-out many expected in Mûr-de-Bretagne, and once again at the Tour de France, it fell in the favour of Tadej Pogačar, leaving Jonas Vingegaard with the feeling he “could have been closer”.

The pair, who have shared the last five Tour titles between them, locked into a sprint finish at the summit of the town’s steep kicker, only 2km in length, but leg-sapping nonetheless. The win went to Pogačar, who extended his lead over his rival by four seconds to 1:17, thanks to his winning bonus seconds.

The Dane now sits fourth on GC, Pogačar first, with the mountains looming next week.

“Normally I would say I am happy with second, but I think I made a few mistakes there in the sprint, in my opinion,” Vingegaard said afterwards. “You never know if it would have changed anything but if you make a small mistake, you want to do it differently.”

Pogačar was the first to unleash his kick on the climb, the race’s first categorised finish. “If I started my sprint a second or two earlier, I could have been closer at least,” said Vingegaard. “You never know.”

The first significant GC gaps came in Wednesday’s time trial in Caen, where Vingegaard placed 13th, losing over a minute to Pogačar that he will now need to make up if he is to contest for the yellow jersey.

“You can have a bad day – I had a bad day in the time trial – and normally I don’t have bad days, so it wasn’t nice. But I still I believe in myself, and that we can make a difference in the second or third week,” he said.

“It has been seven GC days already, six at least. It has been a hard first week, and I will be curious to see what it does in the third week when you look at it generally. It is a really hard Tour this year.”

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Tom Davidson
Senior News and Features Writer

Tom joined Cycling Weekly as a news and features writer in the summer of 2022, having previously contributed as a freelancer. He is fluent in French and Spanish, and holds a master's degree in International Journalism. Since 2020, he has been the host of The TT Podcast, offering race analysis and rider interviews.

An enthusiastic cyclist himself, Tom likes it most when the road goes uphill, and actively seeks out double-figure gradients on his rides. His best result is 28th in a hill-climb competition, albeit out of 40 entrants.

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