As the 2026 Tour de France route was unveiled, one voice in Danish cycling was quick to share his verdict \u2013 and his warning.<\/p>\n
Brian Holm<\/a> believes Team Visma <\/a>| Lease a Bike must throw their full support behind Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> next summer, instead of splitting leadership duties with Wout van Aert<\/a>. The former Quick-Step sports director was left puzzled by what he heard during the official route presentation, broadcast on Belgian television.\u00a0\u201cIt struck me that Richard Plugge<\/a> [Visma\u2019s team boss] talked more about Wout van Aert than about Vingegaard. In my eyes, Vingegaard is their star,\u201d Holm told Feltet.dk.<\/a><\/p>\n Holm believes the 2026 parcours plays perfectly to the Dane\u2019s strengths, featuring two summits of the legendary Alpe d\u2019Huez \u2013 the first from its traditional 21 hairpins, the second from the lesser-known, vertiginous approach via the Col de Sarenne. \u201cAlpe d\u2019Huez twice \u2013 that\u2019s certainly exciting. But from the back, via the Col de Sarenne \u2013 I\u2019ve never liked that road. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve developed vertigo in my old age, but when you drive there and look down, it\u2019s wild,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Holm knows that route better than most. As Quick-Step\u2019s sports director in 2013, he drove the treacherous descent of the Col de Sarenne when it was last included in the Tour. \u201cLast time they used it, it was as a descent, and it was absolutely brutal. There are no barriers, the road is narrow, and there\u2019s a hell of a long way down if you go off,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember doing the recon and thinking: this feels wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s as if they forget Vingegaard is even on the team\u201d<\/p>\n For Holm, however, the biggest talking point wasn\u2019t the mountains \u2014 it was the way Visma continue to shape their leadership hierarchy around Van Aert.<\/p>\n \u201cI just hope it doesn\u2019t continue like this year, where they rode with two leaders,\u201d he said. \u201cThe focus was on Van Aert \u2014 it\u2019s as if they forget that Vingegaard is even on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s Tour, Van Aert claimed a stage win while Vingegaard fought for overall victory, ultimately finishing second. Yet Holm still finds it odd that so much of the media and internal focus remains on the Belgian. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about Wout. He\u2019s the superstar. But personally, I\u2019d find it more exciting if there was a bit more talk about Vingegaard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the sun, moon and stars align\u201d<\/p>\n Holm hasn\u2019t lost faith in his countryman\u2019s ability to reclaim yellow. \u201cEven though some people claim otherwise, I still believe Vingegaard can win the Tour de France \u2014 if the sun, moon and stars align,\u201d he said with conviction.<\/p>\n Not everyone shares Holm\u2019s optimism. Still, for Holm, the message is simple: the route suits his compatriot, and so should the team\u2019s strategy.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the 2026 Tour de France route was unveiled, one voice in Danish cycling was quick to share…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-224110","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\/224110","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=224110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}