“It is a discipline he has not learned yet” - Jonas Vingegaard urged to reinvent himself in 2027 with full Classics campaign
Cycling
Jonas Vingegaard has won all three Grand Tours and spent much of his career building towards the biggest stage races in cycling. Anders Lund believes 2027 should finally test him somewhere very different.
The former Danish national coach and current Eurosport expert wants Vingegaard to keep the Tour de France as his main objective, but surround it with a far more ambitious one-day programme featuring Strade Bianche, the Ardennes Classics, the World Championships and Il Lombardia.
“He needs to start racing one-day races,” Lund said on Eurosport.
“He needs a season where he really commits to it properly, instead of turning up under pressure once at Lombardia and failing, or once at the European Championships and failing there too.”
Vingegaard has races almost exclusively stage races in recent seasons
A rare gap in Vingegaard’s palmares
For a rider with Vingegaard’s stage-racing record, his one-day CV remains remarkably sparse. His best WorldTour Classic result is eighth at Clasica de San Sebastian in 2021, while his only one-day victory came at the Drome Classic in 2022.
He did not contest a one-day race in 2023. His only such start in 2024 came at San Sebastian, where he failed to finish, and his return to championship racing at the 2025 European Championships also ended in a DNF. He did not start a one-day race at all in 2026.
“It is a discipline he has not learned yet,” Lund said. “He should have the attributes for it, but he has not managed to make it work yet.”
Before his Tour de France crash in 2026, Vingegaard had won Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Giro d’Italia, completing his collection of Grand Tour victories. “He has mastered stage racing, we know that,” Lund said. “But there is a dynamic in some of the one-day races he has tried which does not seem to suit him, or there is still something he needs to learn.”
Strade Bianche and the Ardennes before another Tour assault
Lund would begin Vingegaard’s Classics experiment on the gravel roads of Strade Bianche in March before Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of the Basque Country lead into Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
“He could absolutely start with Strade Bianche,” he said. “He would obviously be a big name there, but he could still go slightly under the radar, as much as Vingegaard ever can, because others would be bigger favourites, for example Pogacar.”
A lengthy break after the Ardennes would then take Vingegaard towards the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and his main objective of the summer.
His 2026 Tour ended on stage 15 when a crash left him with a fractured collarbone, cutting short a Giro-Tour double attempt in which he had been sitting second overall behind Tadej Pogacar.
“He needs to use next season to make a serious attempt at the Tour, because he still owes it to himself to prepare purely for it and see what happens,” Lund said. “At the same time, he needs to bring one-day races into his programme as something new and motivating, where he can develop and use the season to practise.”
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Worlds and Lombardia waiting after July
Lund would also keep Vingegaard racing deep into the second half of the season. Clasica de San Sebastian would come immediately after the Tour, followed later by the World Championships in France, the Canadian Grand Prix races in Quebec and Montreal, Giro dell'Emilia and Il Lombardia.
The 2027 Worlds in Sallanches stand out within that programme. The elite men’s road race contains around 5,700 metres of climbing and repeated ascents of the Côte de Domancy, while Vingegaard is still waiting to make his first elite World Championships road race start.
Following Lund’s proposed calendar would give Vingegaard 10 one-day race starts across 2027. Across 2024, 2025 and 2026 combined, he managed just two.
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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