Vingegaard said his Jumbo-Visma team had a plan to make Pogacar crack, but the 2020 and 2021 champion saw it differently. "I didn't notice, I was going day by day and I didn't see that I was feeling worse and worse. Vingegaard's season is solely focused on the Tour while this year Pogacar sought victories in Milan-Sanremo (4th), the Tour of Flanders (1st) and Paris-Nice (1st). He won the Fleche Wallonne but a crash on the Liege-Bastogne-Liege meant he could not prepare correctly for the Tour. Pogacar also wants to beat Vingegaard on the Tour before possibly moving on to "new challenges".

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Persons: Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, de la, Vingegaard, Marie Blanque, la, Eddy Merckx, Mauro Gianetti, Gianetti, Julien Pretot, Toby Davis Organizations: Tour de, Paris, of, Sanremo, of Flanders, Reuters, Giro, Thomson Locations: Slovenian, Pyrenees, Cauterets Cambasque, Milan, Paris, Liege, Bastogne