The time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné produced bigger time gaps than expected. Remco Evenepoel delivered a dominant performance, and Jonas Vingegaard also rode a strong race against the clock. On paper, the big loser was Tadej Pogacar, who lost 48 seconds to the winner. But former pro Tom Danielson believes the Slovenian planned it all, he didn’t even really try.
First, Vingegaard. The Dane lost 20 seconds to Evenepoel, but Danielson is impressed, as he shared on social media. “Jonas looks more muscular than he did during last year’s Tour, where he was extremely lean. He has more power now, both for long efforts and explosive bursts. He also moves less in the saddle than he used to. And he was able to start, climb, and finish with a high cadence on a course that featured so many different types of terrain. That’s really hard to do, and there’s no doubt he’s ready to race for the win in July.”
Pogacar lost nearly half a minute to his Danish rival. “If it had been anyone else, people would say: that’s actually a decent result, and there’s still a month and a half to go before the key Tour stages. But it’s Pogi, and he usually wins,” said the former domestique of Lance Armstrong. “So is there more going on here? I think so. I’m going with my gut: I think he deliberately rode at a controlled pace, almost like a training ride, knowing he’d finish behind Jonas.”
Pogacar himself admitted that his time trial was “not perfect,” but Danielson thinks it’s all part of the game. What’s that based on? He noticed that the world champion’s body language was nothing like what people are used to seeing from him. “He started off slow, maintained a much lower cadence than usual, didn’t sprint out of the corners, and didn’t push himself to the limit at the finish.”
“The other side of the story is how much Jonas and Visma are focusing on Tadej. A time trial is very easy to analyze, and if you compare Jonas’ performance to Remco’s, assuming Remco is even stronger than last year, then Jonas is right where you’d expect Tadej to be, if he were at the same level as last year. At Visma, they now have confirmation that Jonas, and Matteo (Jorgenson, ed.), have improved, but they still have no clarity on Tadej.”
