Wednesday 9: 13:10 → 17:45
French Caen-Caen
The first individual Time Trial. Basically all flat, it is rather long compared to many others nowadays.
Rankings:
1- Van der Poel🇳🇱 & Pogatchar🇸🇮
3- Vingegaard🇩🇰 at 8″
4- Jorgenson🇺🇸 at 19″
5- Vauquelin🇫🇷 at 26″
6- Mas🇪🇸 at 48″
7- Onley🇬🇧 & Almeida at 55″
9- Evenepoel🇧🇪 at 58″
10- Skjelmose🇩🇰 at 1′02″
Just said he had a bad day, way lower numbers than in Dauphiné. Actually a healthy sign that he's not on whatever magic sauce they are feeding Pogacar.
Thw result was mostly just Vingegaard being shit, not Pogacar being amazing. He was even slower than the washed up Roglic who started his season earlier at the Giro.
Yes, it's natural to have bad days, not natural to be in tip-top shape 8 months of the year and win in all terrains.
Pogatchar doesn't take part in many days of racing, though (neither does Vingegaard). Despite riding 2 Grand Tours last year, he ended up with less than 60 race days. This year he only rode the equivalent of 3 weeks before starting the Tour of France. Even Roglitch who is very often injured, thus needs to abandon races and requires recovery time, rides a bit more than Pogatchar.