Former teammate Tony Martin couldn't see Jonas Vingegaard's potential right away: "Grischa Niermann told me back in Jonas's first year that he was the next big thing"

This year's edition of Tour de France could go down in the history books for many reasons, one of them being the long-awaited clash of former teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic whose paths have separated at the end of last season. Tony Martin, who shared the yellow-black jersey with both of them for three years, shared some insight into this match-up from the Dane's perspective in an interview for Eurosport.

"I came to Jumbo with Jonas and I remember that we had a hotel room together at the first team meeting - we immediately got closer to each other as 'the new guys'," Martin recalls their first encounter. "That's why I know him quite well."

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"To be honest, I didn't see his potential back then, but I can remember a conversation with Grischa Niermann, our sporting director at Jumbo: He said back in Jonas's first year that he was the next big thing. Grischa played a key role in his signing and performance tests have apparently shown that this talent will one day become a great one. If such an assessment turns out to be true as it was for him, it is outstanding and underlines how well the team finds talent or develops drivers in such cases."

"From my point of view, that makes a huge difference. They can judge each other very well, Jonas probably Primoz even a little better than the other way around. Because he eode for him as a helper, worked a lot for him and of course also received instructions from him. Therefore, he knows what Primoz would like and when and what he wouldn't like - Jonas can benefit from that. Maybe he knows: Roglic doesn't like to ride the last two kilometers in the final, but prefers to only finish in the last 500 meters - just as a possible example."

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