LAVAL, France (Velo) — Temperatures are rising on and off the bike as nerves crank up between UAE Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike at the Tour de France.
Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard are the two top alphas in the Tour, and tongues are wagging that there’s no love lost between the two super teams as the race for yellow heats up.
With the media swarming over slights both real and imagined, the tension inside the bunch is building with the Pyrénées looming.
But does it spill over to being personal? Visma’s Grischa Niermann shrugged off what he calls media hyperbole.
“Things are blown up a lot at the Tour de France, and it’s nice for the media that there is a rivalry, and there is of course,” Visma’s Grischa Niermann told Velo and other media Saturday.
“At the Tour de France there is so much media that they need some good stories,” the Visma sport manager said. “I also read that the whole peloton hates us now.”
But is it all media invention?
Pogačar has already taken a promising lead to arch-rival Vingegaard, and this Tour is about to shift into a different gear. The pressure is on Visma to crack the Slovenian.
Nerves are getting squeezed to the breaking point as the peloton pushes toward the Pyrénées and the winner-take-all race for yellow.
Water Bottle Gate: Real or imagined?
An incident Friday in the feed zone of stage 7 is being held up as Exhibit One.
Visma and UAE both roared into the feed zone riding to get bottles, and soigneurs from both teams were close to each other.
Cameras caught Pogačar nudging Visma’s Matteo Jorgenson out of his way.
Pogacar shoves Matteo through the feed zone, causing him to miss a bottle. No penalty tho bc it didn’t cause a crash #tdf25
— kristo jorgenson (@kris.to) 11 July 2025 at 18:58
Intentional or accidental, some see it as the latest example of how the peloton’s two super teams are getting on each other’s nerves.
On Saturday, a war of words broke out in the media mixed zone.
“There was a feed zone and we were riding one line. My soigneur was 20 meters past Visma, and they decided to pass on the right side,” Pogačar told ITV. “I gave [Jorgenson] a little of a push so I could get my bottle.
“They do this a lot, coming in front of you in the feed zone as if they are the only ones getting bottles,” Pogačar continued. “You have to be patient and stay on the wheel when you are getting bottles, and pay respect to everybody.”
Visma’s sport manager Niermann shrugged off the incident as an argy-bargy in the bunch.
“Maybe we should tell our soigneurs to stand a little further apart from each other. They both didn’t get a bottle because Matteo missed his as well, which is a pity,” Niermann told ITV, which asked for a reaction to Pogačar comments that teams need to pay more respect in the feed zones. “Same back to him.”
Rivalries are nothing new
Of course, it’s normal that the peloton’s top riders will have a natural rivalry. Both want to finish on the top spot in Paris.
This Tour is seen as a pivotal moment in their careers, with Pogačar possibly going to four if he wins or Vingegaard pulling even at three apiece if he triumphs.
Both Vingegaard and Pogačar have repeatedly said across their careers there is mutual respect, but during the race, it’s natural that things heat up.
So far, UAE is refusing to get pulled into the drama, with boss Joxean Matxin Fernández telling reporters that “we stay focused on our race and our team, and we do not worry about what other teams are doing.”
Speaking to reporters in the mixed zone Saturday, Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers chimed in, saying, ” I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
“They’ve always had that rivalry because they’re the best two teams and they’re the best two riders,” said Thomas, adding that both teams have been railing it across the opening week of the race.
“Visma and UAE look to every opportunity to try to make it hard. Everyone is talking about how Visma wants it hard all the time to crack ‘Pog’ because that’s happened once,” Thomas said. “I don’t know if he’ll crack. This hard racing is going to hurt a lot of people in the end.”
It’s natural that nerves are frayed after no-holds-barred racing day in and day out.
Niermann also countered that he believes “there is a lot of respect in the peloton.”
“When Tadej wins, I go to [UAE managers] Andreij and Matxin, and I congratulate them. It’s also the other way around,” Niermann said.
“It’s a big fight, and it’s nice for the cycling fans that not everyone is just rolling out the red carpet for Tadej and that there is a little bit of a fight,” he said, “We will keep on racing.”