Like Vingegaard, João Almedia also pays price for recent Vuelta a España GC battle with Euros disappointment.
Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) prior to the 31st UEC Road Cycling European Championships 2025 (Photo: Billy Ceusters/Getty Images)
Updated October 5, 2025 09:31AM
The bid by Jonas Vingegaard to become European road champion unraveled on Sunday, with the Danish rider unexpectedly being dropped before the main attacks started firing off.
The two-time Tour de France winner cracked with 108km to go while climbing the 7km-long Côte de Saint-Romain-de-Lerps climb.
He subsequently retired from the race, his ambition of becoming a better single day racer unraveling.
Vingegaard recently won the Vuelta a España and while he said he was unsure of his form due to not having competed since then, he was hopeful that he could do something big.
“If I find the recipe for tackling one-day races at this European championship, I’d love to compete in more in the future,” he said in the pre-race press conference.
His difficulty contrasted utterly with that of Tour rival Tadej Pogačar, who attacked with 76km to go on the second ascent of the same climb and rode clear of the rest of the field.
Vingegaard has made a career out of winning stage races, with his two Tour wins and recent Vuelta success adding to GC wins in Tirreno-Adriatico, the Critérium du Dauphiné, Itzulia Basque Country, the Tour de Pologne, the Volta ao Algarve and two editions of O Gran Camiño.
He has 42 career victories in all, but has only taken one single day event. That was the 1.Pro-ranked Drôme Classic back in 2022.
In contract Pogačar has clocked up 105 victories, of which 19 are monuments.
Working out the reasons
Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) and João Almeida (Portugal), flanked by Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) and Juan Ayuso (Spain) prior to the 2025 European road race championships (Photo: Billy Ceusters/Getty Images)
Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team will no doubt now analyze his performance and the reason for his difficulties. The most obvious question may be around his recovery from the Vuelta, and whether he has simply gone too deep after finishing second in the Tour and then winning in Spain.
Fatigue from the recent grand tour seems like a big possibility, particularly as the race runner-up João Almeida also got into difficulty on Sunday.
The Portuguese rider was dropped with 92km to go.