"It's always been turned upside down in the last two days" - Jonas Vingegaard sounds Giro warning ahead of monstrous stage 19

Jonas Vingegaard cut a cautious figure in pre-stage interviews ahead of Friday's monstrous Giro d'Italia 19th stage. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike leads the general classification by over four minutes, but warned that stranger things have happened in previous years as he hopes to hold on to his pink jersey.

The job is certainly not done for the Dane. 5000 meters of climbing squeezed into 151 kilometers serves up a feast for the GC leaders looking to gain time on their fellow contenders. Although the statistics will tell fans that Vingegaard has a strong grip on the maglia rosa, he won't believe that until he wears it on the streets of Rome.

With anxious glances to the Tour de France in July, Vingegaard almost has the job done after three mountain-top finish wins built his commanding lead over Felix Gall in second and Thymen Arensman in third. But when asked about Friday's stage in the mixed zone, he couldn't help but nervously laugh when asked about what's ahead for riders.

"What happens? We have a pretty hard day," Vingegaard laughed in a pre stage interview. "We have 5000 altitude meters in 150 kilometers."

The queen stage of the corsa rosa, Friday's huge ascents will feature the Dolomites giant Passo Giau. It's the Cima Coppi of this edition, and set to be the scene of a general classification duel despite its slopes being still over 50 kilometers from the finish of the stage.

Vingegaard insisted he's not thinking offensively, but just hoping to conserve his lead: "Today's probably the hardest stage of the Giro. We have to make sure that we are still in pink at the end of the day. That's our goal at least."

He added that a secondary goal could be to help teammate Davide Piganzoli in the young riders classification: "It would be very nice to see Davide [Piganzoli] in the white jersey after today. That would be something that we would be extremely happy about."

Concluding his pre-stage interview with a subtle warning, Vingegaard made it clear that his focus is on stability - something not every previous general classification leader in the Giro has been able to maintain when it comes to the final days.

The comments could be seen as a nod to last year's Giro that saw Isaac Del Toro lose his pink jersey on the Colle delle Finnestre as his former teammate Simon Yates successful high mountain heist to achieve giro glory.

He concluded: "Especially with how the Giro has been last couple of years, it's always been turned upside down in the last two days. Obviously, we won't take it easy, and we'll do everything we can do to bring this jersey to Rome."