"It's always been turned upside down in the last two days" - Jonas Vingegaard sounds Giro warning ahead of monstrous stage 19
Cycling
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."
Vingegaard hints of defensive stage tactics
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."
Vingegaard's Giro warning
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.
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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."
Gavin QuinnCycling Journalist
Gavin Quinn is a cycling journalist and ultra-distance cyclist with a BA in Journalism from Dublin City University. Formerly the Press & Communications Officer for Cycling Ireland, Gavin has worked inside the national team at the World Championships and has reported for the Irish Mirror, Mirror UK, and The42.
His expertise is backed by elite-level access, having interviewed stars like Sam Bennett and Ben Healy, as well as immense personal endurance. In 2025, he completed a 12,000km solo cycle from Ireland to Vietnam, following a 4,600km tour across Europe. From the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix to the gradients of the Tourmalet, Gavin’s writing focuses on the "romance and brutality" of the sport. Having visited 50+ countries, he brings a global, cultural perspective to his coverage of the pro peloton for CyclingUpToDate.
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- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- What a travesty ! That little deviation did nothing to impede Brand !frieders307-11-2026
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