A crisis has erupted within the Visma - Lease a Bike team. Jonas Vingegaard, after yesterday's stage, went straight to the team bus and did not come down, and the team's press officer apologized to the media present, explaining that the Danish rider would not speak. The only words heard were from Matteo Jorgenson, who in a low voice, recounted his crisis.

"Personally, I have no excuses for the Hautacam stage. I had a really bad day. I knew it from the beginning, and I tried to give my best to be at the front in the first climb, and this ultimately proved to be a mistake. You only understand that when you try. And then on the last climb, I was completely empty".

The American crossed the finish line in fifteenth position, more than 10 minutes behind Pogacar and has now slipped to tenth place in the general classification, with the podium, over 12 minutes behind, seeming unreachable.

"While assessing my physical condition, I thought it was better to detach myself from the general classification because I realized I couldn't follow Jonas. Now I'm several minutes behind".

Once again, Pogacar demonstrated his superiority, and while climbing Hautacam, he swept away all his competitors.

"While pedaling, listening to the radio, I heard that Tadej was simply the strongest. So congratulations to him".

At a certain point, Jorgenson lost contact with Vingegaard and didn't understand what happened during the race. "I don't remember exactly what happened. Jonas suddenly dropped back. I saw him visibly angry. This morning he felt like he was having a good day, but then he came out like someone who had received a harsh lesson. There wasn't much time to talk during the race".

Restarting now is difficult because Pogacar has a significant advantage, and in the general classification, Vingegaard is more than three minutes behind and it will be hard to catch up.
"We will definitely continue to try. We'll need to rework our strategy and move forward".

The hot weather negatively impacted the riders, and Vingegaard perhaps suffered more than others from the high temperatures during the race. "It was an incredibly hot day. It was hot and we were going very fast. The first 100 km were incredibly hard for me. I already knew from the first kilometers that it would be a bad day and I continued to struggle and fight. It was tough, truly a terribly difficult day. I have no excuses. I just had a bad day and now I'll have to improve a lot".