If Jonas Vingegaard is ready to challenge for his third Tour de France victory, he will be competing in the Grand Départ in Florence next Saturday. This is the story his team, Visma | Lease a Bike, has been telling cycling fans for the past two months. Stef Klass’ recent performance at the Tour of Slovenia shows that Vingegaard’s level is high enough. We will soon see the answer. Another aspect that could play an important role in the high mountains would be nutrition. After all, the Dutch team is confident in this discipline as well.
In 2020 and 2021, Pogačar won the Tour, while in 2022 and 2023 the cool-headed Dane took the title. In both cases, Pogačar turned out to have underestimated nutrition. This year, logically, Pogačar seems to have the advantage, but nutritionally, maybe not. “To be honest, I don’t think Pogačar’s team is close to our system,” says NOS professor Askel Jekendrup.
“A lot of teams are still looking for the latest miracle cure,” the former triathlete said, “or they buy a big food truck and think that’s it for food investments, even though the food is often very basic. When do the athletes get it and what? It’s either whatever food works or it doesn’t.”
Diet during the race is also an important factor: “We did a lot of research on all sorts of combinations of carbohydrates, but we ended up with a combination of fructose and dextrose – in other words, fructose and glucose – which use different transporters in the gut.”
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