Analyst points out striking difference between Vingegaard and Pogacar: "It's a kind of protective mechanism"

This year, Jonas Vingegaard faced a tough defeat at the hands of Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France. The Slovenian now has one more Tour victory to his name than the leader of Visma | Lease a Bike. Given Pogacar's unparalleled dominance this year, is there hope for Vingegaard to beat him next year? Former team director Johan Bruyneel from Belgium certainly thinks so.

The question of whether Vingegaard can redeem himself against Pogacar next season has been raised several times lately. Vingegaard’s fellow countryman and former team leader Brian Holm expects he can. Future Visma | LaB rider Victor Campenaerts was more cautious, suggesting that Pogacar could still improve further and that Vingegaard would need to be in near-perfect form to defeat his UAE Team Emirates rival. On Thursday, Pogacar extended his contract with the Emirates team for six more seasons.

Like Holm, Bruyneel believes the tension will return in the next Tour. "I think he (Vingegaard, ed.) is convinced that he can beat him. After all, he has defeated him twice in a row. He will undoubtedly push himself to the limit in training," Bruyneel said on the podcast The Move. Recently, Bruyneel expressed confusion over Vingegaard's early season finish. The Dane ended his cycling year after the Tour of Poland in mid-August. "Maybe he did it partly to completely overhaul his training program, to gain more strength. He knows he’ll have to step up if he wants to challenge Pogacar."

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Vingegaard with the dominant Pogacar on his wheel

Bruyneel: "It looks so easy and smooth"

"And why wouldn’t he be able to beat him," Bruyneel continued. "It was a miracle that Vingegaard made it to the start of the Tour, after that terrible crash and minimal preparation. Despite that, he came close to Pogacar at one point. He even beat him once. Vingegaard is one of the few this year who managed to defeat Pogacar in a stage that Pogacar wanted to win," Bruyneel referred to the eleventh stage of the Tour, where Vingegaard caught up with a breakaway Pogacar and then surprisingly beat him in the sprint. "He just needs to take another step in training, stay healthy and avoid crashes. Then he can certainly beat Pogacar again," Bruyneel says with confidence.

A striking difference between Vingegaard and Pogacar also came up. "The biggest difference between Vingegaard and Pogacar is that Pogacar can maintain a very high cadence (pedal frequency, ed.) for a long time," Bruyneel explained. "It's incredible. In every race he won this year, his cadence was between 92 and 97 revolutions per minute throughout the entire race. Jonas has a good cadence, but definitely not like that. A high cadence doesn't work for everyone, but what I do know is that a high cadence acts as a kind of protective mechanism. It reduces the chance of blowing up. It also ensures that, even on a bad day, you can still perform quite well. That’s what sets him apart from the rest. It looks insane, it looks so smooth and easy."

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