Jonas Vingegaard: "Finally pinning on a race number again. This is actually quite emotional for me"

Jonas Vingegaard has suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and collarbone less than three months ago. He spent eight days with a lung drain and almost two weeks in a Basque Country hospital, but today he began the Tour de France with dreams of winning it for the third consecutive time. But the defending champion is thankful just to be returning to the race that has marked his career.

"It's really great to be here. At the start of a race again. Finally pinning on a race number again. This is actually quite emotional for me", Vingegaard said in words to Eurosport this morning. He leads in Team Visma | Lease a Bike, a vote of confidence given to him despite the difficulties that have been tackled over the past few months. The Dane resumed training just over month and a half ago and although several team members admit he is not at his best form, he certainly is fit enough to be in the race for the top results otherwise the Dutch team would not be supporting him the way they are.

Ahead are three tricky weeks where he finds himself in a slightly similar situation to that of Tadej Pogacar last year, without ideal preparation. But it has been a more difficult situation for Vingegaard. However, if he can survive the first days of the race without any meaningful loss, he is expected to be a huge headache for UAE Team Emirates later in the race as the peloton will tackle plenty high mountains.

At the start of the first stage of the race, a hilly and very treacherous stage, Vingegaard had this to say: "It's going to be a very, very difficult day. Very hot, and with a tough course. I expect that the other classification riders will already put pressure on him today."