{"id":406927,"date":"2026-02-04T06:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/406927\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T06:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:41:11","slug":"thomas-and-rowe-question-visma-and-vingegaard-decision-whats-jonas-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/406927\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas and Rowe question Visma and Vingegaard decision: \u201cWhat\u2019s Jonas thinking?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Giro d\u2019Italia, Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> will attempt in 2026 to complete the trilogy of Grand Tours. There has already been plenty<\/a> said about the Dane\u2019s Giro participation, because how is the Visma leader supposed to take on Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France afterwards? Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe<\/a> have their own questions, too.<\/p>\n

Five Tours, three Vueltas: that\u2019s how many Grand Tours Vingegaard has raced so far. With two overall wins in France and one in Spain, the 29-year-old Dane has done rather well. He has never ridden the Giro d\u2019Italia, but that will change this year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a decision that has been widely debated. In July, another showdown with Pogacar awaits in the Tour, and the team has repeatedly stressed that it remains the most important race of the year. Over the last two years, Vingegaard has come up short against the Slovenian, who claimed Tour wins number three and four in dominant fashion.<\/p>\n

The Visma Dane will still take on \u201cPogi\u201d this summer \u2014 but he\u2019ll do so with the Giro in his legs. \u201cBallsy,\u201d Thomas calls the decision in the Watts Occurring podcast<\/a>. \u201cAnd it almost never works.\u201d The former Tour winner sees two possible explanations for the choice.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"jonas-vingegaard\"\/\u201cWhat would he do if he knew now that Pogacar wasn\u2019t going to ride the Tour?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they doing it to at least win a Grand Tour, almost like they\u2019re accepting defeat against Pogi? Or are they doing it thinking: he has such a big engine that he\u2019ll perform better in the Tour with a Grand Tour in his legs?\u201d says Thomas, admitting he doesn\u2019t know. \u201cI hope it\u2019s not already a worry that they can\u2019t win the Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the Welshman understands the choice from Visma and Vingegaard. \u201cOn one hand, it\u2019s the Giro and that\u2019s a huge, great race. In many ways, better than the Tour even. He\u2019s already won the Tour and the Vuelta once, so if he wins, he\u2019ll have all three Grand Tours,\u201d Thomas says, looking at the trilogy.<\/p>\n

But Thomas also sees another side \u2014 a risk, even. \u201cIf something happens to Pogi the night before the Tour, like he drops his recovery drink on his foot and breaks it,\u201d the Welshman suggests, purely hypothetically. \u201cYou know what I mean \u2014 so he suddenly isn\u2019t in the Tour, or he drops out in the first days. What does Jonas think then? What would he do if he knew now that Pogacar wasn\u2019t going to ride the Tour?\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"jonas-vingegaard\"\/Rowe rates Visma highly: \u201cI think Visma are one of the smartest teams \u2014 maybe the smartest\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether something like that will actually happen remains to be seen. Rowe, for his part, has a clear view: \u201cThe second-best stage racer of this generation has to prepare 100% for the biggest bike race in the world. That\u2019s probably the romantic side of it \u2014 you want to see the best riders in the biggest race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Rowe \u2014 now working as a sports director at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale \u2014 rates Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> very highly. \u201cI think Visma are one of the smartest teams \u2014 maybe the smartest. There will be a lot of thinking and calculating behind this that we don\u2019t know about,\u201d the former rider concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Giro d\u2019Italia, Jonas Vingegaard will attempt in 2026 to complete the trilogy of Grand Tours. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,20995,9046,109480,101,56,54,55,45702],"class_list":["post-406927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-giro-ditalia","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-luke-rowe","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406927","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=406927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}