2024 Tour de France runner-up and 2022 and 2023 total winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) has insisted that his key takeaway from this yr’s race is that regardless of his defeat, the circumstances following his fightback from horrible accidents in April have meant that ending second virtually appears like a victory.
“So after all, I’m not successful the Tour de France, however possibly in a couple of weeks, when I’ll have a while to replicate on it, I shall be much more happy with second place than the 2 victories I’ve had,” Vingegaard mentioned on Sunday night.
After instantly following up his second place within the Col de la Couillole on Saturday with second within the Tour’s remaining time trial – his fourth runner’s up spot in a stage of this yr’s Tour – Vingegaard’s remaining putting within the remaining GC, 6:17 down, is his fourth podium end in as a few years within the race. That run of high three locations began with second total behind 2024 winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in 2021, then two outright victories in 2022 and 2023 and now second once more in 2024.
However, in 2024 the general lead remained past his attain, with Vingegaard’s one go to to the winner’s podium earlier than the ultimate line-up at Nice the stage win in Le Lioran.
But as Visma-Lease A Bike administration repeatedly reminded media on the Grand Départ in Firenze, even attending to the Tour was an immense victory for the Dane, given his appalling crash this spring. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, his phrases in a remaining press convention late on Sunday night underlined how proud the 27-year-old was of with the ability to compete at a excessive stage within the Tour this yr, whereas clearly implying how decided he’s to go one step increased once more in 2025, too.
“First of all it was very good for me to be again at a really, very excessive stage,” he mentioned. “After all the pieces that occurred with the crash, with the setback that I had this yr, it was not good after all, however then to have the ability to get again like this, to get second within the Tour de France remains to be a really large outcome.
“With all the pieces in thoughts, it is perhaps a good larger outcome than really successful the Tour de France when all the pieces went completely. So after all, I’m not successful the Tour de France, however I feel when I’ll have a while to replicate on it in a couple of weeks, possibly I shall be much more happy with second place than the 2 victories I’ve had.”
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With no racing since his crash in April, Vingegaard’s efficiency within the first 10 days of the Tour invited much more optimism than he or the group might maybe have hoped for.
The solely rider capable of observe Pogačar when he attacked on the ultra-steep San Luca climb on stage 2 in Bologna, he misplaced simply 38 seconds on the Galibier on stage 4, the important thing first-week mountain take a look at, which the group put down partly to elements like Pogačar’s larger weight – and therefore increased speeds – on the descent. Then after one other minimal time loss within the time trial and protecting a rampaging Pogačar below management in an all the time unpredictable gravel stage, Vingegaard went as far as to outsprint Pogačar in a shock defeat for the Slovenian at Le Lioran. At that time, the Tour appeared vast open, and journalists have been even telling Pogačar post-stage that Vingegaard was transferring forward of him within the larger GC sport.
“I feel the day I received the stage, I used to be believing I might win the Tour de France, from thereon and in addition earlier than,” Vingegaard mentioned. “That was as a result of I knew I had a excessive stage and Plateau de Beille [on stage 15] was my finest ever efficiency on a protracted climb, a 40-minute climb.
“I used to be taking a look at my energy numbers and I used to be fairly unimaginable myself. But Tadej was stronger, so he deserves to win for positive. It’s actually spectacular how he rode the Tour.”
As far as La Bonette-Restefond, midway by way of stage 19, Vingegaard was nonetheless optimistic that he might flip round Pogačar’s three-minute benefit total, even sending three domestiques up the highway to assist him out within the occasion of a counter-attack from the GC peloton.
But it by no means got here. Instead, Vingegaard realised that he was not going to win the Tour that day, and with a radical swap of technique, he went from all-out offensive to making an attempt to maintain a lid on his rivals like third-placed Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)
“On the stage to Isola, I used to be feeling actually unhealthy, once I crossed the road I used to be completely empty,” he recounted. “Halfway by way of the stage there I realised, at present I must change my mindset from making an attempt to assault to simply hanging on for expensive life on Remco’s wheel.”
However, it wasn´t nearly following wheels. Vingegaard fought a courageous rearguard motion on stage 20 to distance Evenepoel and safe his second place, in addition to defeating the Belgian once more on Sunday, and with the broader perspective that the tip of the race introduced, Vingegaard was already focussing on the excessive factors of his Tour. The foremost one being, after all, that he was capable of be within the Tour in any respect, preventing for a podium and maybe extra for therefore lengthy.
“I feel additionally for me the spotlight is to have a struggle like this with Remco and Tadej,” he mentioned. “Of course additionally for me,[other highlights are] simply getting back from the crash, simply being again within the peloton, and truly not being afraid of being within the peloton.
“I feel if you’ve had a crash like this, you by no means know the way it will really feel to be again and the way it will really feel to do the descents, to be within the bunch, so [a highlight] is simply the entire three weeks that I’ve been there, focussed every single day.” Yet extra causes to be cheerful, he mentioned, have been that “I used to be additionally on some days on the next [performance] stage than I’ve been earlier than.”
The highway forward
Yet the sport has moved on since 2023, as Pogačar delivers performances which can be past even what Vingegaard was able to doing to defeat the Slovenian, and by a substantial margin – over seven minutes – final July. Cycling followers and media are sometimes collectively responsible of getting brief recollections and such has been the dimensions of Pogačar’s domination, it’s exhausting to recollect this was the identical rider uttering ‘I’m lifeless, I’m gone’ as Vingegaard ripped the race aside on the Col de la Loze a yr final July.
However, if Pogačar’s efficiency in 2023 needs to be taken within the context of a damaged wrist in April that yr and a half-wrecked Tour de France build-up consequently, when requested what could possibly be improved for 2025, the Dane pointed to April 2024, and his personal Itzulia Basque Country horror crash because the context that outlined a lot of his race this season.
“It’s all the time exhausting to say what I can enhance, I feel the entire preparation was removed from ultimate this yr so there’s an enormous step to be made there,” he mentioned, earlier than including laconically, “An enormous step is simply to not break virtually each bone in my proper facet of the higher physique and puncturing each lungs.
“So I feel having coaching and never having a setback like that, shall be an enormous step as nicely. And after all, we’ll have to have a look at all the pieces we will enhance on.”
The undeniable fact that he has turned in a few of his finest climbing performances on this yr’s Tour can also be grounds for optimism and he agreed that “For positive it provides me some type of perception with the preparation that I had, as a result of to be trustworthy I solely had 6 weeks of correct coaching.”
“That’s removed from ultimate, I used to be 12 days in hospital, eight days in intensive care the place I used to be not allowed to get away from bed so that you lose a lot form and a lot coaching. So on this case it provides me some perception that at the very least I do know I can put together quite a bit higher subsequent yr.”
What stays of this season, although, is one other story. Second within the Vuelta a España final yr, there have been persistent rumours that he may head for the race begin in Lisbon on August 17. But Vingegaard made it clear that he wouldn’t be current in Portugal in August and after a mentally and bodily draining 9 months, the primary factor he was eager about post-Tour was having a break.
“To be trustworthy I haven’t had a day of relaxation in my head since November final yr,” he mentioned. “Since then it’s all the time been about coaching and vitamin and making an attempt to get higher. Then I crashed and it was about getting again or simply making an attempt to get to a excessive stage for the Tour.”
“It was an enormous struggle simply to prepare for Tour de France. And for very lengthy, I even doubted whether or not I might prepare,” he concluded.
However, if Pogačar’s commanding efficiency and Giro-Tour double have been making many of the headlines on the Monday after the Tour, Vingegaard couldn’t be forgotten. It wasn’t simply that the identical rider has stood alongside Pogacar, both forward or behind him, on the Tour de France podium for the final 4 years, both.
From Vingegaard’s dedication merely to participate, by way of to his Lioran stage win, his gutsy defence of his podium spot and his brace of second locations within the remaining weekend at Nice – all of those moments have been testomony to the Danish rider’s resilience and braveness, too. For the longer term, then, each within the Tours and in loads of different races, that certainly will as soon as once more rely for an excellent deal.
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