is all the more remarkable<\/a> given that he endured life-threatening injuries following a high-speed crash in the Basque Country in 2024, in which he broke his ribs, sternum and collarbone and also punctured a lung. \u201cI really believed I was going to die,\u201d he said in the aftermath.<\/p>\nWhile Pogacar was racking up further wins, it proved to be a long road back for Vingegaard. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve spent the last two years fighting my way back,\u201d he admitted, shortly before the Giro began.<\/p>\n
Although this latest crushing win proved that Vingegaard is now back to his best, his success came in a Giro field lacking four-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, double Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel and French prodigy, Paul Seixas. However, they will all be on the start line for the Tour\u2019s Grand Depart in Barcelona in July. If the Danish rider had been hoping for a tough \u2013 but not too tough \u2013 challenge before lining up against Pogacar at the Tour, then he was granted his wish. Vingegaard\u2019s resilience has been tested, but not exhausted, during his fourth Grand Tour win. \u201cIf you don\u2019t come out of a Grand Tour completely on your knees, then you have something to build on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tadej Pogacar did not compete in Italy and is likely to remain the man to beat this summer. Photograph: Massimi Paolone\/LaPresse\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
It says a lot about the uncomplicated nature of Vingegaard\u2019s Giro victory that in winning five summit finishes and taking the overall victory by more than five minutes, he was never really in jeopardy. It\u2019s a stretch to portray this Giro as a glorified training camp for the Dane and his Visma Lease-a-bike team, but at times, as he rose out of the saddle and accelerated clear to another mountain stage win, it felt that way. Felix Gall, the Austrian climber, who raced to a career-best Grand Tour finish of second overall, said: \u201cI\u2019m not sure Jonas really worried about me. He is clearly on a different level.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Pogacar didn\u2019t exist, Vingegaard\u2019s consistency would make him the outstanding rider of his generation. In the past 11 months, he has finished second in the Tour and won the Vuelta, and this season won Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Giro.<\/p>\n
Despite that, with the significance of the Tour dwarfing cycling\u2019s other races, Vingegaard still exists in Pogacar\u2019s shadow. Given his current level, a third Tour win now looks possible for the Dane, but it would require a dip in form from the Slovenian to allow him to succeed.<\/p>\n
There is still room for improvement, which, for a rider who has finished second in Paris on three occasions, will be a big motivator. The downside for Vingegaard, however, is that with Pogacar still at the peak of his powers, it may not be enough.<\/p>\n
As Vingegaard cruised to victory in Italy, Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel were training at altitude in southern Spain, both focused on honing their climbing form prior to the Tour. Seixas has also been putting in marathon training rides at Sierra Nevada, accumulating around 37,000 metres of vertical gain in less than two weeks. Vingegaard, after two weeks at home with his family in Denmark, will also put the final touches to his Tour preparation at altitude, in Tignes.<\/p>\n
Geraint Thomas\u2019s first Grand Tour as director of racing for the new-look Netcompany Ineos team was a mixed bag. Thymen Arensman, their Dutch leader, faltered in the final mountain stages and slipped from third place to fourth overall, but still achieved his best finish in a Grand Tour. Although the British team took a stage win through Filippo Ganna, it still lacks a leader potent enough to contend for a Grand Tour success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonas Vingegaard\u2019s achievement in completing a grand slam of Grand Tours lifts him into a select club of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-614930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614930","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=614930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}