"He felt sh*t about leaving the race" - Visma DS provides update on Jonas Vingegaard

Jonas Vingegaard started his season at the Volta ao Algarve and although he looked far from his best regarding climbing form, it was enough for him to win the overall classification. At Paris-Nice he seemed to have the same level, but a crash left him with a hand injury that forced him to abandon the race. Team Visma | Lease a Bike provide an update on the Dane.

The former Tour de France winner does not have a great relationship with the French race, having been beaten brutally by Tadej Pogacar back in 2023, and now having to abandon after crashing in the yellow jersey. A face injury was visible, but it was the pain in his hand that caused the most problems, specially preventing him from braking properly.

"He’s ok, but he has a lot of pain in his hand. We did some x-rays, but it doesn’t seem like anything is broken, although it is still very painful for him and he is not feeling well after the crash," team DS Grischa Niermann told CyclingWeekly.

"We will now monitor him and after a few days we will then have to decide what’s next." It was decided within the team that the Dane would abandon the race before the start of stage 6, and focus on his recovery ahead of his next goal the Volta a Catalunya - where, in normal conditions, he would be the main favourite. His presence or favouritism at the moment can't be confirmed, with eight days left to the start of the race.

The team remained in the lead of the race with Matteo Jorgenson, but that doesn't hide the blow it was to have the other co-leader leave the race in such way. "He felt shit about leaving the race," Niermann shares. But ultimately the team decided to go with the ultimate precaution: "But we absolutely don’t want to take any risks with him. I think everyone could see that he was in a lot of pain so we had to make that decision."