Johan Bruyneel on Jonas Vingegaard: "Having a child is not really a reason to finish your season"

As Tadej Pogacar continues to dominate the cycling world in 2024, the question looms... who can stop the all-conquering Slovenian? Probably the first name that comes to mind is Jonas Vingegaard, the man who defeated Pogacar at successive Tours de France in 2022 and 2023.

On the latest episode of The Move podcast, the latest of Pogacar's brilliant moments in 2024, a fourth consecutive victory at Il Lombardia, is discussed, with the question even posed to former sports director, Johan Bruyneel: "If Jonas Vingegaard would have been at the race, would the outcome have been any different?"

"At Il Lombardia? Pfft no," Bruyneel answers dismissively. "At the maximum, Jonas would have been with Remco. I mean first of all, he's not a one day racer. He could be, especially in that kind of race, but it looks like he's not interested," the 60-year-old Belgian continues. 

As noted on the podcast, one of the reasons Vingegaard isn't still competing at this time of the season is because the Danish leader of Team Visma | Lease a Bike has recently welcomed a new addition to his family. "Yeah but, having a child is not really a reason to finish your season," Bruyneel counters. "I mean, after the Tour de France, he did win the Tour de Pologne. Didn't win a single stage, but he won the overall. But he cut his season short quite early."

"He didn't race much at all, during the whole year," continues Bruyneel. "I don't really know why he doesn't race more. Just to stay active, stay motivated and to have some goals. Obviously you know, he knows better than we do and his team knows what they're doing, so I'm not criticizing that. But, I find it a very long time to be without competition. Not just from the physical point of view but also, you kind of have to keep your points of reference to know where you are at with your rivals."

As mentioned Vingegaard has beaten Pogacar in the past, but even without the injuries endured in 2024, the Dane would have had little chance of stopping his rival according to Bruyneel. "The 2022 and 2023 Tour de France, we were all thinking: 'Okay Jonas is so strong, there's no way Pogacar can beat him', but back comes Pogacar and just blows everyone away, including Jonas," he concludes. "I'm tempted to say that even the Vingegaard of 2023 would not have beaten the Pogacar of the 2024 Tour de France."