{"id":422262,"date":"2026-01-19T01:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422262\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T01:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:03:08","slug":"hard-to-be-a-domestique-for-someone-you-dont-admire-victor-campenaerts-full-of-praise-for-visma-leader-jonas-vingegaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422262\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHard to be a domestique for someone you don\u2019t admire\u201d \u2013 Victor Campenaerts full of praise for Visma leader Jonas Vingegaard"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nA leader who demands everything<\/p>\n

When asked to describe Vingegaard in a single word, Campenaerts did not hesitate. \u201cFocused.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Campenaerts, that focus is not abstract. It is something he sees every day. He explained that riding for Vingegaard means committing to the highest possible ambition, winning the Tour de France<\/a>, and that comes with a unique level of pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has to fight for every single second until the last metre of every race,\u201d Campenaerts said, adding that this is already demanding even before you factor in everything else that comes with being a Tour contender.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has so much going on besides just the race,\u201d he explained, pointing to constant media attention and external noise. In that environment, Campenaerts believes focus is not optional. \u201cIf you\u2019re not focused and get carried away, you\u2019ll never survive the Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

What impresses him most is how Vingegaard handles that load. \u201cHe knows what he has to do, where he has to spend his energy, and where he shouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why admiration matters in a team like Visma<\/p>\n

Campenaerts is not just a helper. He is one of the riders Visma trust in their biggest races, including Grand Tours, where every detail is controlled and every role is sharply defined.<\/p>\n

In such a structure, belief matters. Campenaerts made that clear when Mielke asked whether he is a fan of his team leader. His answer was immediate: \u201cYes, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

For him, admiration is not about celebrity. It is about credibility. He is a rider who prides himself on suffering for others. Doing that day after day only works if you trust the person you are working for.<\/p>\n

This fits neatly with what Vingegaard himself has said elsewhere about pressure and burnout<\/a>, and how hard modern cycling can be. Campenaerts\u2019 comments show what that looks like from the inside. A leader fighting for seconds, surrounded by distractions, relying on riders who must believe in his process as much as his talent.Campenaerts in the Vingegaard project<\/p>\n

Campenaerts is not watching this from the outside. He is part of it.<\/p>\n

He has already spoken about how riding for Vingegaard in major races changed his own expectations of himself, especially in the mountains, where he surprised even himself with how strong he could be. That growth has pushed him into the core of Visma\u2019s Grand Tour structure.<\/p>\n

In 2026, he is expected to support Vingegaard at both the Giro and the Tour. That means weeks of riding at the front, controlling pace, responding to attacks, and burning energy so that Vingegaard can save his.<\/p>\n

Doing that without admiration would be almost impossible.<\/p>\n

\"Victor<\/p>\n

Campenaerts is once again expected to be a key lieutenant of Jonas Vingegaard in 2026<\/p>\n

A fan in the front row<\/p>\n

Campenaerts also described himself as more than just a rider. \u201cI\u2019m of course a cyclist, but I\u2019m also a fan of the sport,\u201d he said. Watching Vingegaard operate at the very top, from the front row, has only deepened that respect.<\/p>\n

For Visma, that dynamic matters. They are not just building a team around power numbers and tactics. They are building around trust, belief, and shared ambition.<\/p>\n

And as Campenaerts made clear, in the hardest races in the world, admiration is not a luxury. It is part of what makes a domestique willing to give everything.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A leader who demands everything When asked to describe Vingegaard in a single word, Campenaerts did not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,6495,85,165035,2845,171060],"class_list":["post-422262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-tour-de-france","tag-victor-campenaerts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}