Jonas Vingegaard has silenced a lot of doubters in the opening two weeks of the 2024 Tour de France. After concerns over his health and fitness following a nasty crash at the Itzulia Basque Country earlier this year, the Dane, according to the numbers at least, is performing better than ever before. One problem though, Tadej Pogacar is doing even better.
"It's true that I'm climbing at my best level ever. Yesterday anyway. But if someone is better, you have to accept that," the defending Tour de France champion and Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader assesses in his second rest day press conference. "Hopefully we can turn that around in the last week. I'm not going to give up without a fight."
With 15 stages in the legs, Vingegaard sits second in the general classification, over three minutes down on his old rival Pogacar. Are Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Vingegaard ready to risk dropping down the GC in order to potentially move up? "Remco Evenepoel is very strong. He has shown that over the past two days. But I would rather attack Tadej than look back at third place," says the Dane himself. "I still believe it can be done."
Given the fact just a few months ago Vingegaard was in intensive care with a punctured lung, even being at the start line was a feat, let alone being as competitive as he has been so far. On the second rest day however, the two-time Tour de France winner insists that the lung issues of recent months aren't bothering him at all.
"I don't think it will be a problem. I think I showed yesterday that my lungs work very well," Vingegaard concludes with confidence. "He's not much better. If I can improve a little bit in the future or even in this Tour, we'll be close."
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