"It's boring anyway” - Dutch Pundit takes aim at Jonas Vingegaard
CyclingWednesday, 02 July 2025 at 09:09
Dutch commentator Mart Smeets appears notably unenthusiastic
about the 2025 Tour de France. On the cycling podcast De Kopgroep, Smeets
didn’t hold back, delivering a particularly blunt assessment of Jonas
Vingegaard.
"It's boring anyway if you field a Dane who rarely says
anything nice in his life," says Smeets. "Who has no charisma. Who
can cycle fast, but reduces cycling to a three-week small spectacle and who
happens to come from Copenhagen and surroundings."
His words were harsh, especially given Vingegaard’s track
record. The Dane claimed back-to-back Tour titles in 2022 and 2023, only losing
out to Tadej Pogacar in 2024 after a build up disrupted by injury. Without
Vingegaard in the mix, Pogacar could well have been chasing a sixth consecutive
yellow jersey this summer.
Smeets went even further, questioning the significance of
nearly the entire Tour peloton. "There are 176 starting this year. That
means that 170 men have absolutely no business being there. Just riding along
and bringing a little water."
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- It's hyperbole.
parisbound0020-07-2025 - If you believe in free-range, no GMO food. If you believe that game management of certain species, like deer, requires hunting (which it does, unless we have a major re-introduction of predators like wolves and bear and cougars), unless we double the roadkill, then faux abhorrence of hunting is a manifestation of tribal ignorance. In your opinion, would it be better to outlaw firearms in hunting and just go back to stampeding animals off cliffs, like our ancestors once did?
WheelWoman19-07-2025 - I never implied that it was illegal - quite the opposite!WheelWoman19-07-2025
- Love this podium, I remember Tour de l'Avenir 2018, Tadej and Arensman were kids. First Tadej, second Arensman (today reverse) and third the dear Gino Mader.
maria2024202419-07-2025 - Both are overdoing things. Having been at many races of all levels, it’s a miracle things don’t happen more often, spectators, riders, bikers, drivers, ALL guilty of naivety and ignoring all others at times. Too many seem to consider every space is reserved for them once they feel they have a purpose there.Mistermaumau19-07-2025
- Rebuilding would mean they must evaluate their budget.awp19-07-2025
- A 50+ million budget team not even in the top 5 GC of any GTs is not success especially when they have won a lot of GTs in the past their recruitment also tends to be for helper riders like Tobias Foss which is a waste of money when they donot have a leader to win GCabstractengineer19-07-2025
- Regardless of what they were, they are very different now.awp19-07-2025
- Part of being a dumbass...bobo19-07-2025
- That doesn’t work the same way for everyone, a small team with no expectations and nothing to lose obviously has more chance of looking successful than a big team with history going downhill.Mistermaumau19-07-2025
God what an a hole - why does this site insist on giving a platform to these pundits who have never won a race ?
Dirty Danes..
Definitely the Copenhagen 2011 WC road race was the most boring ever,lol
Grumpy old has been who doesn’t much like cycling
Mart Smeets hate his job.
Jonas isn’t boring….. he’s his own person, if that’s different to other people, so what. This guy Smeets is just a small dog yapping for attention.
Cycling is almost entirely a game of aerodynamics and energy drain. If people want a triathlon-style cycling experience, no drafting allowed, they should watch triathlons and time trials. The peloton is absolutely essential to the rest of the sport, those 170 riders do more than fetch water.
All the cyclists responses to media can easily be done by a robot. Even Pogi. Without Jonas, the TDF would be won at a canter by Pogi which would be extremely boring like the giro he won last year.
Jonas may be boring, but he is a great champion, something Smeets will never know.