"Jonas Vingegaard will decide for himself whether or not he will go to the Tour de France" according to Merijn Zeeman
Cycling
Arguably the biggest topic of the minds of cycling fans across the world currently, is whether or not Jonas Vingegaard will be at the start line of the 2024 Tour de France in Florence to defend his two successive Maillot Jaune victories.
The Dane is currently training hard at altitude in Tignes, but it remains a race against time for Vingegaard to make it back to full fitness for the Grand Depart. "Ultimately, the point is that in the last weeks of preparation during the altitude training camp in Tignes, he must be completely available for everything we do with the Tour team," says Team Visma | Lease a Bike's outgoing sports director Merijn Zeeman, in quotes collected by Wielerrevue.
"He must be able to perform the toughest endurance training; the intensity, the intervals, the long endurance rides," Zeeman continues, noting how strenuous Vingegaard will be working in order to do absolutely everything he can to recover in time. "A rider who may not be at his own top level, but who is ready for it both physically and mentally. He has to be looking forward to it and have the feeling: I am completely back and can fight with the best for three weeks. If that is not the case, Jonas cannot ride."
In the end, it will all be down to Vingegaard himself according to Zeeman. "Jonas will decide for himself whether or not he will go to the Tour. He has to feel for himself whether he is completely ready for it in all respects and whether he is the old Jonas again. The choice is his. We will never force a rider to take a to compete," the sports director concludes. "I don't think that decision can be made until a week before the start of the Tour. We do not have another rider of his level and with his characteristics in the team. Jonas is so extremely talented that he can grow to a high level very quickly if he is taxable. That means he has a special place for us and we will indeed be waiting for a long time."
I think he should skip the Tour (or either ride it as training) and go full form for the Vuelta. It's no good for him to try and force a yellow jersey in such a condition. There'll be more Tours to come, and this one's for Pog.
Wow. How fast has Visma fallen apart. Going from winning all three GTs last year to this.
“he can grow to a high level very quickly if he is taxable.” Got to love the translations here! If he does show up UAE need to attack early, as it’s almost a given that JV will get stronger as the race goes on.
He’s obv not going to say no knowing without him there’s no gc hope for the team. Not only the whole team dynamic changes depending on his decision but team preparations and whole lot more given the high stakes. All in all he should be able to reach a decent level of form towards the third week and should be able to compete for podium at least, similar to how Pog did last time around. Hope he shows up eitherway, adds more drama. Should be fun!
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- That made me smile Suipedali. Nice one!Cyclingsbestfan14-03-2025
- Even if Pogi has 5s on top of Poggio, he's getting caught on descent unfortunately. And it's extremely unlikely that he will have morevappaxbipmv14-03-2025
- If Pogi can drop him, then he will winabstractengineer14-03-2025
- In that sense, those two have less in common than the link you could make between demonstrators, right handers, Hinault and Merckx.Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- "He apparently thought it was completely fine." Nothing broken and no concussion, that's as completely fine as it gets in cyclingvappaxbipmv14-03-2025
- Better safe than sorry. At least his injuries are a lot less severe than they were last year.
santiagobenites14-03-2025 - Well spotted :-)Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- One thing Jonas Vingegaard has in common with Hinault is that they are moaners, although I couldn't see Jonas giving a demonstrator a right hander!Suipedali14-03-2025
- They are surprisingly rare on the pro circuit, around our area, one in four races finishes of with a really steep 500m climb at the end.Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- Give him an uphill sprint, then he may win against pure sprinters.
KerisVroom14-03-2025