Mid-Week Check-In: Breaking Down Jonas Vingegaard & Visma's Strange Paris-Nice Tactics

What Jonas Vingegaard and Visma's strange tactics tell us about what to expect during their looming Tour de France showdown with Tadej Pogačar

While the past few days have seen some intriguing racing at the two concurrent stage races, Tirreno-Adriatico and Paris-Nice, the action came to a head today on Stage 4 of Paris-Nice. Heavy sleet and hail disrupted the stage, halting the race to allow riders to seek shelter and warm clothing and creating a chaotic restart that didn’t fully take place until the race reached the base of the final climb. Once on the slopes, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard attacked, leaving his teammate and the race leader, Matteo Jorgenson, isolated and vulnerable.

However, instead of finishing the stage off with the trademark power we’ve come to expect from Vingegaard over the past few seasons, which would have created a slightly awkward, but manageable situation within the team, Vingegaard’s pace stalled and he was quickly caught, and passed by a flying João Almeida before the finish line. When the dust settled, Vingegaard was left holding the race lead with a five-second advantage over his teammate Jorgenson, with Almeida, who took a 10-second time bonus for the stage win, suddenly thrust back into GC contention after a disastrous performance from his UAE team in the Stage 3 team time trial.

Check out my key takeaways about what this means for the rest of Paris-Nice and Jonas Vingegaard and Visma’s looming duel with Tadej Pogačar and his UAE juggernaut at the upcoming Tour de France.