\nThe Kigali question<\/p>\n
When Vingegaard announced on 21 August \u2014 two days before the Vuelta start \u2014 that he would not ride Worlds after all, it raised eyebrows. Kigali\u2019s demanding course was expected to be tailor-made for Tadej Pogacar, but Sorensen believes Vingegaard was the one rider capable of following him, at least deep into the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone can follow Pogacar, it\u2019s Vingegaard,\u201d Sorensen insisted. \u201cHe probably wouldn\u2019t have beaten him, but I really believe he could have won a medal. His form from the Vuelta was still there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dane ultimately chose to focus on the European Championships in France a week later, citing the need to recover properly from the Vuelta and arrive fresh. That gamble didn\u2019t pay off. He was anonymous at the Euros, later admitting that he\u2019d either had an off day or hadn\u2019t fully recovered after a two-week training pause post-Vuelta.<\/p>\n
Had he gone to Kigali instead, Sorensen argued, the sharpness from his Vuelta-winning form might have given him a better chance to contend. \u201cWe\u2019ll never know,\u201d Sorensen reflected. \u201cBut that opportunity is gone now.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than one race<\/p>\n
Despite the disappointing end to the season, Vingegaard\u2019s year remains a solid one by any measure. In addition to his Tour runner-up spot and Vuelta victory, he took second at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 and won the Volta ao Algarve. He finished the year ranked world number two \u2014 only the third Dane ever to reach that position after Mads Pedersen and Jakob Fuglsang \u2014 and for the fifth straight season, he ended as the highest-ranked Danish male rider.<\/p>\n
Before Vingegaard, only Bjarne Riis had ever stood on the Tour de France podium for Denmark. Vingegaard has done so five times in succession, winning twice and finishing runner-up three times. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to tear that one bad race out of the book and look at the bigger picture,\u201d Sorensen concluded. \u201cHis Worlds absence doesn\u2019t change the fact that we\u2019re witnessing one of the most consistent Grand Tour riders of his generation.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Kigali question When Vingegaard announced on 21 August \u2014 two days before the Vuelta start \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-200707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}