‘I haven’t discovered how to perform in them yet’: Team Denmark backs Vingegaard to finally crack the classics code at European Championships.
(Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images )
Updated October 2, 2025 07:12AM
Jonas Vingegaard will be odd-man-out Sunday morning when he lines up alongside Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel at the European Championships.
This weekend’s title fight will be a very rare foray into one-day racing for Vingegaard.
Unlike hybrid superheroes Evenepoel and Pogačar, the newly crowned Vuelta a España champion just hasn’t found a way to make classics racing “click.”
“I haven’t ridden many one-day races recently because I haven’t really discovered how to perform in them yet,” Vingegaard told Wielerflits soon after La Vuelta.
“The only time I won a one-day race at the Drôme Classic was the day after another one-day race. So you couldn’t really call it a one-day.
“I find it difficult to figure out what I need to do the day before a one-day race – what I need to do to be good at them,” Vingegaard said.
It’s perhaps no surprise Vingegaard hasn’t deciphered the art of one-day racing.
The 28-year-old has followed an old-school diet of stage-racing in his ride to the front echelon of the pro peloton.
Hilly monuments and even cobbled classics? They’re for Pogi and Remco.
Sunday’s Ardeche championships will be only the 26th one-day race of his 10 year pro career, and just his second in nearly three years.
His younger rivals already count two or three times more. Pogačar has started 84 one-dayers, Evenepoel, 61.
Vingegaard’s last five one-day classics:
August 2024: Donostia San Sebastian: DNF
October 2022: Il Lombardia: 16th
April 2022: Liège-Bastogne-Liège: DNF
April 2022: La Flèche Wallonne: DNF
March 2022: GP Denain: 76th
But Vingegard is clearly classics-curious.
He planned to make his long-awaited elite debut in Denmark’s deep red last weekend at the Rwanda road worlds, but later rowed back the idea of racing again so soon after his Tour de France-Vuelta a España double.
With the Europeans on Sunday, Vingegaard couldn’t have chosen a much tougher day for his classics rebirth.
Sure, there’s none of the altitude and only around 70 percent of the climbing of Kigali, but the competition is no less fierce.
Pogačar and Evenepoel will be throwing haymakers for a third time in 10 days after their world title clashes.
A longer break since the Vuelta a España and an easier parcours opens the door to a whole new range of European title contenders.
‘I don’t believe he’s weak in one-days’: Vingegaard sees Danish backing for European bid
Vingegaard threw down with MVDP, Pogačar, Evenepoel in the explosie opener of the Dauphiné. (Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images )
One-day noobie or not, Vingegaard takes headliner status over even Mads Pedersen and Mattias Skjelmose in Denmark’s European road race team.
Danish national coach Michael Mørkøv said Vingegaard has no reason to count himself out for this juicy, rare, one-day clash with Pogačar and Evenepoel.
“I don’t really believe he’s weak in one-days,” Mørkøv recently told Feltet. “He has already performed remarkably well several times in the first stage of races he has participated in.”
Indeed, Vingegaard emerged from his injury setback this spring more explosive and more aggressive than ever.
Mørkøv highlighted how his outsprinting Mathieu van der Poel and Evenepoel this June when Pogačar won the first stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné was a sign of his one-day capacity.
Beyond that, Vingegaard showed through the hills of Brittany and Normandie he’s got the short-twitch punch and racing nous to match his monument-munching Tour de France rivals.
“He did incredibly well there [at the Dauphiné]. It’s hard to argue that a first stage is not equivalent to a one-day race,” Mørkøv said. “He attacks deep into the final and then rides a tough sprint against Van der Poel, where he finishes second.
“That tells me that he can certainly perform in a one-day race.”
Mørkøv added separately that Team Denmark refuses to be counted as underdogs for Sunday’s hilly French championships – Vingegaard’s questionable one-day capacity or not.
“The European championships has two challenging climbs,” Mørkøv told TV2 when he confirmed the Danish 8. “These are challenges suited to lightweight and explosive riders.
“We’re privileged to have such riders, especially Jonas Vingegaard and Mattias Skjelmose. We have a strong team around them, and our clear ambition is to become European champions.”
Into the unknown in quest to crack the classics code
Vingegaard won’t have raced in the three weeks between the Vuelta and Europeans. (Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images )
The European championships will be a ride into the unknown for Vingegaard.
Unlike Pogačar and Evenepoel, he’ll arrive into the Ardeche this weekend with the Vuelta a España in his legs.
The 28-year-old will have a deeper type of fatigue than travel-weary foes who only recently jetted back from Rwanda.
“It’s hard to set any expectations. I’ve done two grand tours, so I don’t really know where I’ll be in terms of form,” Vingegaard said after he returned home from a madcap final Vuelta stage in Madrid.
“Of course, I’m in good shape now and trying to keep riding it, but you never know if I’ll be good or bad.”
Vingegaard has nothing to lose in his quest to crack the one-day code this weekend.
Second in the Tour de France and first in the Vuelta a España is already some summer for the Visma-Lease a Bike star.
But if Vingegaard can figure out how to dial in his preparation, there’s no reason why he can’t be barge in on Evenepoel and Pogačar and raid the white and blue-striped Euro jersey.
“I know riders who train for three hours the day before a one-day race and treat the session as if it were a race,” Vingegaard told Wielerflits. “I don’t know if that’s the recipe, but it’s something I could try.”
So if you see Vingegaard tiring himself out motorpacing all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, don’t be alarmed.