Jonas Vingegaard's coach confident of recovery ahead of Tour de France: "There is no one who can improve as quickly as he can"

Jonas Vingegaard will likely race the Tour de France. His form will be a bit of an unknown, but the Danish rider's coach Tim Heemskerk says that he can improve incredibly fast, and is already putting on a light training load.

"Jonas is someone who picks it up quickly and has an astonishing amount of talent. In a maximum of two weeks we will know the answer to the question of whether the Tour is feasible," Richard Plugge told Het Laatste Nieuws. "Not before. I still have high hopes for it."

Over the past two years, Vingegaard won the Tour de France after a very focused and specific training period, without mishaps. He faces a different challenge this year as his focus in on recovering from a very serious set of injuries, but with month and a half left to go there is still time to put on some training and possibly do a proper altitude camp before taking to the start in Florence.

"What Jonas is currently doing is light endurance training. We have to realize that he lost his form due to the hospital admission, which meant that he did almost nothing for three weeks," coach Tim Heemskerk detailed to BK. "However, we also know that he will respond quickly to his training, but that does not mean that I know whether he will be ready in time for the Tour."

There is a full focus within Team Visma | Lease a Bike to help the rider recover as fast and best as possible in what is an absolute race against time. "He has a physiotherapist and a nutritionist with whom he works, but of course we also have contact with him. Without pushing him. Jonas will remain in Denmark for the time being, because he is now in a good place there," he adds. If he is in pain, we will adjust the training accordingly."

"Jonas is motivated, positive and mentally strong. There is no one who can improve as quickly as he can. The only concern is that his body is still recovering from the broken ribs, abrasions, his lungs and the entire trauma. That takes energy. My feeling is that we still need two or three weeks to see if the basic training will give him enough to participate in an altitude training camp."