The riders of Visma | Lease a Bike took the initiative themselves on the Tour de France stage to Hautacam, hoping to wear down the UAE Emirates XRG team of Tadej Pogacar. But the Yellow Bees mostly took themselves out of contention. Former Visma rider Sep Vanmarcke thinks he knows why.
“They faded faster than expected,” Vanmarcke said on Sporza. “They probably wanted to set a high tempo, but the opposite happened. On the first climb of the day, Matteo Jorgenson was already in trouble. That was a warning sign. Simon Yates was also not his best self.”
The West Flemish former rider has a striking explanation. “In recent years, nutrition has been increasingly optimized. A nutrition plan is drawn up by a nutritionist together with the coaches. They study the upcoming stages and calculate how many kilocalories the riders need based on the expected wattage output. This certainly shouldn’t be too much because, if they consume more, they gain weight. They don’t want that, so it’s precisely calculated. But it seems they misjudged the stage after the rest day.”
“They thought it would be a calm ride with a tough final hour, but that wasn’t the case. So, perhaps they ate too little before and during that stage. Afterwards, you have to recharge, but your stomach can only digest so much. So they likely didn’t store enough energy for the tough ride up to Hautacam. It is and remains very difficult to predict everything,” Vanmarcke believes.
