Jonas Vingegaard seemed to brush off Remco Evenepoel’s annoyance with him when he would not put his head down and ride (Photo: Maximilian Fries)
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) seemed to brush off Remco Evenepoel’s (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) annoyance with him when he would not put his head down and ride for the line when the duo got clear in the crosswinds at Volta a Catalunya.
Evenepoel seemed to be speaking to Vingegaard and looking back at him, encouraging him to work, as their gap began to grow with about 25km to go on Wednesday’s stage 3. But when the Dane decided he didn’t much fancy it, Evenepoel threw his hands in the air in frustration.
“The cooperation was amazing, the cooperation was amazing,” Evenepoel told journalists at the finish, nodding his head, as the media clearly saw the humour and sarcasm in his remarks.
When also asked about it, Vingegaard – who will look to take his chances on the climbs in coming days – seemed quite relaxed.
“I think at some points he (Evenepoel) wasn’t really happy with me, but that’s cycling, that’s how it is. We have our own tactics,” he said, clearly comfortable with not being bullied into riding someone else’s race.
“I didn’t expect it to be like this, I expected it to be a bigger group,” Vingegaard added of the race scenario in the final. “But he went and I jumped across to him.
“He was very strong on the flat, and he’s very aero, obviously, and very strong at the moment. So I’m happy I could jump across and work together a bit with him.”
The two-man break happened when Evenepoel went to the front of the reduced bunch with 27km to go. He simply rode off the front in the crosswinds, when the others were unable to hold him.
But as he opened his gap, Vingegaard was close to the front and jumped across to him. They then rode clear and looked like they may just about hang on for a two-up sprint at the finish in Vila-seca.
But as the reduced peloton was just seconds behind and closing in, with 500m to go, Evenepoel was changing his hands to the drops and hit a pothole, crashing hard.
Vingegaard was left leading alone but decided to pull the pin rather than take advantage, sitting up and waiting for the bunch, which caught him. Race leader and stage 1 winner Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) took the sprint for victory.
Evenepoel explained that, once they were away, he wanted to press on.
“I saw that he was coming (across) to me, so I wanted to go to the finish line. We had quite a nice gap to go for the win. Normally we were going to sprint for the win, but fate decided differently.”
He confirmed he crash, just before a roundabout with about 500m to go, because he didn’t see a pothole and hit it just as he was moving his hands on the bars.
“My elbow is hit quite hard, so we have to see what is and isn’t possible. I’m in a bit of pain everywhere. My elbow is open, my back is open, and my hips are open.
“I have to let my body recover a bit, and then we’ll see what it has to say tonight and especially tomorrow morning. I’m still standing and nothing is broken so that’s positive.”