{"id":215629,"date":"2025-10-21T14:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215629\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T14:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:19:11","slug":"i-expected-a-lot-more-from-jonas-vingegaard-at-la-vuelta-rasmussen-disagrees-with-claims-visma-leader-is-best-danish-rider-in-the-peloton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/215629\/","title":{"rendered":"“I expected a lot more from Jonas Vingegaard at La Vuelta” \u2013 Rasmussen disagrees with claims Visma leader is best Danish rider in the peloton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denmark\u2019s golden era has rarely felt richer. Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> finished 2025 as the nation\u2019s top-ranked rider globally after winning the Vuelta a Espana<\/a> and taking second at the Tour de France, while Mads Pedersen<\/a> produced a wall-to-wall campaign that rarely dipped. Ask former Tour de France star Michael Rasmussen<\/a>, though, and the consensus doesn\u2019t tell the whole story.\u201cNaturally, it\u2019s a matter of taste,\u201d Rasmussen said on Viaplay<\/a>. \u201cI just think Mads has shown greater consistency this year. Jonas has had some dips along the way from his incredibly high level. It\u2019s an enormously high level that Jonas delivers \u2013 he goes through the Vuelta without being at 100 percent and still wins it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rasmussen acknowledged Vingegaard\u2019s remarkable standard but said that across the full season, Pedersen had maintained a steadier rhythm of results across the whole course of the season.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI expected much more from Jonas\u201d<\/p>\n

Rasmussen\u2019s comments come despite Vingegaard\u2019s strong campaign, which included victory at the Vuelta a Espana and second place at the Tour de France. Yet the former Danish champion admitted he was left underwhelmed by certain moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expected much more from Jonas at the Vuelta too,\u201d Rasmussen said. \u201cOn paper, Jonas should have come away from the race with at least twice as many stage wins. He got three, but it was by the skin of his teeth. It was only on the final stage that I felt Jonas really proved he was the best man in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rasmussen also referenced the European Championships, a race where Vingegaard\u2019s early withdrawal drew criticism. While he was one of the first to question the Visma leader\u2019s decision to start, Rasmussen was careful not to overstate its importance. \u201cNo, that wasn\u2019t the deciding factor,\u201d he clarified. \u201cThe disappointment for me was that Jonas didn\u2019t reach the level I expected of him at the Vuelta. That\u2019s what mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pedersen\u2019s remarkable season<\/p>\n

Pedersen\u2019s 2025 campaign included 14 victories, among them seven on the WorldTour, plus the points jerseys at both the Giro d\u2019Italia and Vuelta a Espana. He also reached the podium at the Tour of Flanders, Paris\u2013Roubaix, and E3 Saxo Classic, closing the year fourth in the UCI World Ranking.<\/p>\n

Rasmussen\u2019s preference for Pedersen over Vingegaard has divided opinion in Denmark, where Grand Tour success is often seen as the ultimate benchmark. But his comments underline that for him, consistency and range across the season outweighed isolated peaks of brilliance.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denmark\u2019s golden era has rarely felt richer. Jonas Vingegaard finished 2025 as the nation\u2019s top-ranked rider globally after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-215629","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\/215629","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=215629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}