Jumbo's performance director on Jonas Vingegaard: "I have the feeling that we haven't developed his potential yet"

Tim Heemskerk, Jumbo-Visma's performance director, has spoken to the Danish website Feltet about his pupil Jonas Vingegaard, who he believes has more room for improvement in his performance than other riders like Tadej Pogacar or Remco Evenepoel.

"There are riders who started training at 14 as professionals and their margin for improvement is very small, but Jonas started training much later as a pro, so he is fresher, has less wear and tear and therefore more room for improvement," he said.

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Heemskerk tells how Vingegaard developed once he joined the team: "When we brought Jonas into the squad he was a total stranger to us, but I could quickly see that, compared to other riders who were also training with us at the time, he had a great facility to improve with the stimuli I prepared for him".

The Jumbo-Visma worker was completely touched by Jonas Vingegaard's facility to improve his performance: "Having talent has something to do with it. So I started to tell myself how far he was capable of going, what was the limit of his physiology and that he could be very, very good".

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Improving lactate threshold

"I have the feeling that we haven't developed his potential yet. That's my instinct but there are many factors at play depending on performance and one of them is, of course, genetics. How you respond to training," Heemskerk continued.

He is very clear that he can achieve a better performance than he did at the 2022 Tour: "Jonas reached his strongest level so far during the 2022 Tour de France, but it can be achieved at various times of the year. I know we can get more out of him if we prepare a little differently. I think when we tune it a bit more, we can improve lactate threshold, VO2max or recovery capacity."

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