"We had an end goal and we all stuck to the plan" - The key to win the Tour de France according to Jonas Vingegaard
Cycling
Jumbo-Visma and Jonas Vingegaard's rise to Tour de France in 2022 will remain one of the highlights of the year, and the Dane has talked about his last months of the year in a recent interview where he further detailed the changes in his life.
“Sometimes I wake up and still wonder if I'm dreaming or if I've really won the Tour de France. I go out and check the yellow jersey… and it's still there. I have it at home, it's a good feeling," Vingegaard shared in an interview with BiciPro. A shy character, Vingegaard's post-Tour reception in Copenhagen was outstanding, and in the months following the Dane spent time with his family and away from the spotlight.
This included time to rest properly both physically and mentally from such a brutal run-up and achievement, and then some more time to train back into competition which he's done at the CRO Race, and later at Il Lombardia where he didn't manage to have the form to contest the win, unlike Tadej Pogacar who stormed to the win in the streets of Como.
"Obviously things around me are different, but my life hasn't changed much," Vingegaard continued. "I still do the same things: I ride my bike, I go shopping, I live in the same village as 1,500 people who are always the same… It's different because now more people recognize me, for example, if I go to the airport."
"But we are at home: we get up, we have breakfast quietly. I ride a bicycle while my partner and my daughter stay at home… Every now and then we take a sort of cargo bike that the sponsor has given us to go around," he details.
He has clearly valued this time after the Tour, specially as often Grand Tour contenders have to spend months away from home in competitions, training camps and at the Tour itself. However, it was all worth it, he says: "The best thing is that we raced as a team. We have so many talents in the team… We had an end goal and we all stuck to the plan. Wout [van Aert], for example, had the yellow jersey, but he gave up defending it to help me".
The Dutch team managed to break Pogacar on stage 11 to the Col du Granon where he cracked spectacularly. Throughout the three weeks, Vingegaard was an unbreakable figure, despite several of his teammates succumbing to injuries throughout the race.
"I think the most difficult day was when we lost Steven [Kruijswijk] and Primoz [Roglic]," he reveals, referring to stage 15. "It was a very negative day, which had a certain weight. But then we had to keep fighting so our plan was to accept the situation and try to do our best and keep going. But other hard moments do not come to mind".
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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