Jonas Vingegaard was denied a second stage win of the 2024 Tour de France by champion-elect Tadej Pogačar, but he did strengthen his grip on second place to Remco Evenepoel on the penultimate day of racing.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider attacked with UAE Team Emirates's Pogačar inside the final five kilometres on the Col de la Couillole, with the latter going on to win his fifth stage of the race.
Soudal Quick-Step's Evenepoel was hoping to reduce his overnight 1:58 deficit to Vingegaard in the battle for second, but the Dane instead improved on his lead, meaning he goes into the final day time trial with an advantage of 2:50 to the Belgian.
However, Vingegaard, who conceded defeat in the race for yellow after stage 19, is still fearful that the time trial world champion can snatch second place off him in the 33.7km mountainous test against the clock.
"He's the best time triallist in the world, so you never know," Vingegaard, 27, said. "Of course three minutes sounds like a lot, but last year I took one minute and 40 seconds [on Pogačar on stage 16], so you can easily lose a lot of time on a course like this.
"So I'm happy I got almost a minute more and now it's one more day. I'll do absolutely everything I can to keep this second place."
Evenepoel's team worked tirelessly hard on the front of the peloton all day, and the Belgian twice tried but failed to distance Vingegaard on the final climb.
"I felt super good when Remco attacked [first], and I was thinking that the second time he would attack I would counterattack him and that’s what I did," Vingegaard said. "Then I was riding more to put a bit more time into him rather than riding for the stage today."
Vingegaard and Pogačar moved clear of the King of the Mountain leader Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) just after the flamme rouge, shortly after Pogačar refused to do a turn for his great rival.
It was a reversal of roles, with Vingegaard having been accused of sitting on the wheels of his closest competitors throughout the three weeks of racing.
"Everyone has their tactic and I don’t judge anyone on their tactics. He was sitting a bit more on, and I would probably do the same in his situation," the two-time Tour winner reflected. "He didn’t need to ride, he has already five minutes on me, and it’s just how it is."
Though he wasn't able to prevent the yellow jersey wearer from winning yet again, the positive for Vingegaard was how he performed a day after a stage in which he lost 1:42.
He said: "I am happy with how I rode today, how I recovered from yesterday. To be honest, yesterday I had a really bad feeling, completely empty, so to be able to bounce back like this is really nice for me.
"My legs felt so much better than yesterday, and then you also gain confidence when you feel like that."
