Jonas Vingegaard struggled during the time trial stage 5 of the Tour de France, losing to Tadej Pogačar by a significant margin of 1:05. This resulted in Vingegaard falling behind Pogačar by 1:13 overall. Vingegaard had matched Pogačar in the initial stages of the race, but the time trial marked a reversal in performance. Though only five days into the race, Vingegaard's team faces uncertainty regarding what went wrong, as they had been optimistic about his potential in the competition.
Following 33km of necessary pain out and back to Caen, and a shocking time loss for the Dane, the Tour's two protagonists warmed down just a metre apart, with Vingegaard the big loser of the day, and Pogačar putting to bed any question of weakness in the race of truth.
Contrast has long followed these modern greats, but once again, Pogačar's 'perfect' day of delight coincided with Vingegaard's nightmare.
While Vingegaard now looks at a frankly massive - at this stage at least - 1:13 deficit to his closest rival as he sits fourth overall, he'll be left questioning just what went wrong.
Is the race over? Of course not, only five days have been raced and all of the big mountains still remain, but it was a sign of inferiority that had not yet been exposed for Vingegaard in this race.
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