Three months after a career threatening crash, Jonas Vingegaard is back at his best level and took his 4th TDF stage win, spanking Pogacar in an uphill sprint. Definitely one of the most incredible comebacks I've ever seen. Hats off, Jonas. 🎩 #TDF2024
"He doesn't race much, but he often wins" - French agent leaps to Jonas Vingegaard's defence after Johan Bruyneel's criticism
CyclingFriday, 18 October 2024 at 13:00
Jonas Vingegaard is one of the top riders in the peloton today, but compared to his arch-rival, Tadej Pogacar, opportunities to see the Danish leader of Team Visma | Lease a Bike in full flow are much less, with Vingegaard's young family understandably being as much of a priority as his career.
Well, although we say understandable, not everyone seems to think so. On the latest episode of The Move podcast, former sports director Johan Bruyneel caused a stir with his comments about Vingegaard. "Yeah but, having a child is not really a reason to finish your season," Bruyneel said when reviewing the Dane's absence from Il Lombardia. "He didn't race much at all, during the whole year. I don't really know why he doesn't race more. Just to stay active, stay motivated and to have some goals. Obviously you know, he knows better than we do and his team knows what they're doing, so I'm not criticizing that. But, I find it a very long time to be without competition. Not just from the physical point of view but also, you kind of have to keep your points of reference to know where you are at with your rivals."
Read also
As mentioned, these comments have caused quite a stir in the cycling world. Despite Bruyneel being a persona non grata for some, for others his opinions still hold weight. In response to the comments about Vingegaard though, Bruyneel has opposition from an unnamed French agent, who quoted to Eurosport a fierce defence of the Dane.
"If the aim is to win the Tour de France, it's still worth a try, isn't it? He doesn't race much, but he often wins. What do you want? We've been through this before. Not everyone is called Tadej Pogacar or Eddy Merckx," the agent explains. "It's up to each team to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the situation."
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024 - So he read the comments here probably :-)DareDevil17-11-2024
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024
- Pointless reporting. They are rivals, each tries their way to get their best result, with or without collaboration. As long as it’s all fair, why even report riders feelings about such stuff (yes I know, lack of other news). Anyone riding races will go through dozens of moments per race where they get emotional about the way someone else rides or takes advantage or doesn’t collaborate or more, it is natural, it is justified, it is NOT newsworthy!Mistermaumau17-11-2024
- I like that you can see you actually replied to you and not just to the same thread. :)Sweep16-11-2024