Jonas Vingegaard expressed no interest in working with Tadej Pogachar on stage 9 of the Tour de France (Sunday) because the two had succeeded in dropping their remaining GC rivals, and the team strategy of always staying with teammates as long as possible He explained that it was based on the following.

On a day when Pogachar had made several big runs, pulled away from the rest of the field on several occasions, and tried to drop his rivals, Vingegaard cooperated with Pogachar to drop his two rivals, Remco Evenpole (Sourdal-Quick Step) and Primosz Roglic (Red Bull= Bora-Hansgrohe) to spend more time on them, which was ideal for him, he told reporters. Vingegaard, assisted by Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte, outpaced Pogachar's furious attack. Pogachar's furious attack was also assisted by Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte. [Vingegaard never tried to help Pogachar and tried to disrupt the race.

"I never thought about that because he was running so fast himself," Vingegaard later told reporters. 'But I figured that under any circumstances, it's better to have more teammates in case something goes wrong.'

"So of course, in a way, it would have been better to ride without Primosch and Lemko. But on the other hand, our goal was not to lose time, so maybe it was better to wait."

Vingegaard's cautious approach may have been justified by his roller-coaster experience on the gravel roads around Troyes, where he not only had to ride nearly 100 km on his teammate's bike and deal with an avalanche of Pogachar attacks, but also had to deal with a series of "pogachar" attacks that were so aggressive that they were able to take him down, Vingegaard suffered two punctures during the stage.

"Of course, I am very relieved that I did not lose any time and finished safely with only two punctures," Vingegaard said with humor about his multiple mishaps.

"I had one on Jan's bike and actually it happened again in the last 3km. I only got a flat tire halfway through, but I made it to the finish on the same bike."

"So I'm really grateful to my teammates. The bike Jan gave me was a perfect fit and everyone else kept me on top. I was first in every sector and sometimes they closed the gap when I couldn't keep up. So I owe them a big debt of gratitude."

Yorgoslavskiy added, "They were the ones that kept me on my toes.

Relying on Jorgenson and Rappold to bring him back to Pogachar, some 30 km from the Rhine, probably made it even less likely that Wisma would change his mind about the danger of working with the Slovenians. However, as Vingegaard explained, their presence made up for his major shortcomings in gravel racing.

Asked who was the strongest in gravel, Vingegaard suggested that Vingegaard was lighter in weight, but added, "Taddei was. [but] Taddei had an advantage over me, especially when the gravel was loose."

"For a guy of my weight, [loose gravel] is not an advantage. To be honest, I was just sliding. It was really hard to control the bike."

"It was really hard to control the bike.

However, Vingegaard stressed that he was against the inclusion of gravel stages in the Grand Tour, branding them "unnecessary." He also boarded the team bus with a relaxed look on his face, despite what was clearly a very tumultuous day.

"After my crash in Ituria-Basque in April, I was so badly injured that I couldn't race until the Tour de France.

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