Visma | Lease a Bike sees Tulett’s decision backfire for Vingegaard: "He’ll be thanked for that later"

The queen stage of the Tour of Algarve turned into a celebration for UAE Emirates-XRG on the second day of the Portuguese race. Jan Christen secured victory from a well-executed attack, while João Almeida and António Morgado also finished ahead of Visma | Lease a Bike leader Jonas Vingegaard. Team director Arthur van Dongen reviewed the race on behalf of the Dutch team in an interview with IDLProCycling.com.

"Jonas felt good, as much as you can in your first race after half a year," began the Dutch team director. "It was very good that Ben Tulett was in what turned out to be the decisive attack, but unfortunately, he got dropped. That put us on the defensive, forcing Jonas to chase himself, so of course, Almeida said ‘thank you’ and took advantage of that effort. But that was tactically well played," he acknowledged, complimenting UAE Emirates-XRG.

Visma | Lease a Bike opted to have Loe van Belle set the pace all day, while Wout van Aert and Tiesj Benoot increased the tempo 40 kilometers from the finish to kickstart the finale. "It was our choice to set a high pace early, but in the end, that didn’t make the difference."

Read more below the video!

Tulett made a tactical error by chasing in the breakaway

Then it was up to the four remaining climbers: Vingegaard, Tulett, Wilco Kelderman, and Sepp Kuss. The latter two were dropped earlier than expected, but Tulett made a good move — partly on Vingegaard’s advice — by joining a breakaway that included Christen, Laurens De Plus (INEOS Grenadiers), Luca Vergalitto (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ), and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost).

And that’s where things started to go wrong. "The biggest issue was that Ben was up front but got dropped. Tactically, it was good that he was there, but eventually, two riders got away. Ben closed that gap, and I just told him the same thing — he kept riding to close that gap while the others sat comfortably in his wheel. And then, of course, he’ll be thanked for that later. That wasn’t good," analyzed Van Dongen.

"As a result, Jonas had to chase for too long himself. We would have liked to have more riders there so that Jonas could bridge across, just like Almeida did. But well, you can’t always order things to go your way," said the experienced Visma | Lease a Bike director.

Read more below the video!

Key takeaway for Visma | Lease a Bike: "Vingegaard felt fine"

The factt that Kelderman and Kuss were no longer in contention on the Alto de Foia isn’t causing panic within the Dutch team. "I won’t deny that we would have liked to have had some guys there longer. But look, Sepp has never been at his best in February, and it was also a very specific finish, so it was tough."

What’s next? "The next two days shouldn’t cause any major differences. The gap is now 20 seconds, but there’s still a tough final time trial to come. Hopefully, Jonas can build towards that, but there are still challengers. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world."

"And most importantly: Jonas felt fine. I saw that myself," Van Dongen emphasized. "Anything is still possible, and whether it works out or not, there’s still work to do. Almeida and Christen are strong riders, but there’s still room for opportunity." He hinted first at Van Aert’s sprint chances, before Vingegaard will get another shot on Sunday.

Read also

"Laughable," concludes Wout van Aert amid the chaos: "This just should not happen!"

Vingegaard proposes 2 potential co-leaders from his team as possible Tour tactics against Pogacar

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get every week the latest news about CYCLING in your inbox!

Subscribe