"Maybe it’s wiser to go to the Giro - will he ever win the Tour again?": Jonas Vingegaard reported Corsa Rosa debut warmly welcomed by Jose De Cauwer

Jonas Vingegaard’s reported interest in riding the Giro d'Italia in 2026 has sparked plenty of early-winter debate, but one man who sees the upside immediately is Belgian analyst Jose De Cauwer.

Speaking on the podcast De Grote Plaat, he made clear that the two-time Tour de France-winning Dane has every reason to embrace a change of scenery if he decides to line up at the first Grand Tour of the season.

De Cauwer did not hold back in explaining why the choice makes sense. “Maybe it’s wiser to go to the Giro, because will he ever win the Tour again? Then you have to make choices,” he said.

With the debate framed as both a tactical reset and an opportunity for Vingegaard to broaden what he could achieve across his career, the question is whether the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader is really better off ending his typical programme where everything is built around the Maillot Jaune.

Across the men’s peloton, the idea of top GC riders compiling a “career list” of objectives has become more common, and De Cauwer sees Vingegaard in exactly that phase. His remark that “Imagine it, he wins the Vuelta, Tour and the Giro... that would be incredible” highlights how the Dane could deepen his legacy by breaking away from a Tour-first routine.

The move would also place him on the same trajectory being considered by Remco Evenepoel, who has openly entertained a return to the Italian race. But De Cauwer made clear that overlap between the two could become a strategic problem. “If one knows the other is there, they might think: oei, then my chances get a bit smaller,” he said. “In the story of Remco: then maybe full on the Tour.”

Against the rising dominance of Tadej Pogacar, both men are weighing up where their best opportunities really lie. And De Cauwer’s assessment of the modern Tour de France was blunt: the race is becoming too selective, too extreme, and too heavily tilted towards the lightest climbers. “Fifty-four thousand metres of climbing in the Tour de France: that is just too much,” he argued. “They keep making the races harder and harder.”

He even suggested the field itself has become skewed by the sheer difficulty. “The top 10 of the Tour is 1 metre 80 and weighs 65 kilos...” he said, pointing out that entire nations risk being excluded by physiology alone. In his view, it is time for the UCI to establish clearer limits on how Grand Tour routes are designed.