“If Jonas said he didn’t want to race again, I would understand” – Trine Vingegaard doubts 2026 return for Visma leader and sets record straight on past criticism
CyclingSunday, 02 August 2026 at 19:00
Jonas Vingegaard may already have ridden his final race of 2026 after a season that delivered Grand Tour history but ended with another operation and an uncertain rehabilitation.
His wife Trine would have no issue with the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader drawing a line under the campaign. Vingegaard remains sidelined by the fractured collarbone suffered when he crashed out of the Tour de France while second overall, with neither his recovery schedule nor an autumn programme yet confirmed.
“If Jonas said he didn’t want to race again, I would understand,” she told Feltet in Glyngore. “But I also do not know which races would be the obvious ones for him. And I have no idea how he will recover from that collarbone injury.”
Vingegaard had attempted the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France back-to-back, completing 21 stages in Italy before racing for another two weeks in July. The World Championships and Il Lombardia remain possible autumn targets, but Visma have not committed him to either.
A historic season followed by another operation
Vingegaard began 2026 by winning Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya before making his Giro debut in May. Five stage victories and overall success in Rome made him only the eighth man to win all three Grand Tours, adding the maglia rosa to his two Tour titles and 2025 Vuelta triumph.
Five weeks later, he started the Tour in Barcelona attempting a Giro-Tour double last completed by Marco Pantani in 1998. Visma won the opening team time trial and placed Vingegaard in yellow before Tadej Pogacar took control of the race.
Vingegaard was still second overall when he crashed out on stage 15. The fractured collarbone required surgery and brought another prolonged recovery only two years after his life-threatening accident at the Tour of the Basque Country.
Vingegaard was sat 2nd overall before crashing out of the 2026 Tour
That 2024 crash left him with broken ribs, a punctured lung, pulmonary contusions and another collarbone fracture. Trine later said the family’s immediate relief was simply that he had survived without brain damage.
“When you look at his season as a whole, it is clear that you are very drained,” she said of his 2026 campaign. “You are constantly switched on, and when you are an introvert like he is, that takes energy out of him. Objectively speaking, riding two Grand Tours is also a huge achievement, with a lot of race days and a great deal of time spent away.”
His season has also included repeated altitude camps, race preparation and long periods outside Denmark. Even before the Tour crash, Vingegaard had completed the heaviest programme of his career.
“Jonas hates all the travel days”
Trine’s comments during the 2025 Tour caused controversy after she warned that Vingegaard was “burning the candle at both ends” and that Visma risked “squeezing the lemon too hard”.
Her Politiken interview also included criticism of the team’s Tour strategy, with Trine arguing that Visma should place its full focus on winning yellow. Those remarks were widely interpreted as a swipe at the freedom afforded to riders including Wout van Aert.
She now says the interview was misunderstood. “I think people misunderstood that interview,” she told Viaplay. “Fundamentally, it was about Jonas being an introvert who hates all the travel days. It was not about him needing to be with his family.”
Vingegaard later acknowledged that repeated three-week camps were difficult for him. Although he rejected suggestions that he was close to burnout, he also used the image of the sport continually “squeezing the lemon”.
Trine has called for teams to make greater use of altitude rooms rather than automatically sending riders abroad for extended training blocks. “It is about making use of the technology that is available,” she said. “For example, you could use an altitude room, set it to 3,000 metres and then stay at home. That way, you avoid the travelling and the stress.”
She also described cycling as “old-fashioned” and resistant to new approaches. Visma have repeatedly used overseas altitude camps before Vingegaard’s biggest targets, including both of his Tour de France victories in 2022 and 2023.
No return date has been set following his latest surgery. Vingegaard’s 2026 season already includes three overall victories, five Giro stage wins, the pink jersey and most of a second Grand Tour before his crash ended the campaign in July.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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