Tour de France, Wout van Aert responds harshly to Tadej Pogacar’s words

On its second and final rest day, the Tour de France frames a lively back-and-forth between the yellow jersey, Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, and Belgium’s Wout van Aert, teammate of second in the standings, Jonas Vingegaard, who was criticized by Pogacar himself for seeking the stage win, which, according to the Slovenian, would go against the interests of Vingegaard himself.

“I find it quite funny what Tadej says – Van Aert said in the press conference -, because in the end it was clear that he also wanted Wellens in the breakaway yesterday, so his team is also doing the same thing. Pogacar is complaining about something that doesn’t exist. We wanted to win the stage, that is why we were in front”.

In the last week, Van Aert has guaranteed that he will try again to win a stage and at the same time continue to work for Vingegaard, trying to help him rebuild the margin of 4’13”: “Of course Jonas will have to attack, anything can happen and it will be a very hard week. Pogacar has been the best climber so far, but we have to keep trying”.

With five stages to go between Tuesday and Saturday before the final catwalk in Paris, Pogacar and Vingegaard occupy the top two positions, while closing out the virtual podium is Florian Lipowitz, the white jersey, with a delay of 7’53” from the Slovenian champion. As for the other jerseys, Jonathan Milan wears the green one of leader of the points classification, while Lenny Martinez wears the polka-dotted one of best climber.