{"id":618311,"date":"2026-06-03T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618311\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T05:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T05:10:12","slug":"this-isnt-jonas-at-his-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618311\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis isn\u2019t Jonas at his peak\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t Jonas at his peak. Remember that,\u201d Stephens said on TNT Sports<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s wiped the floor with the competition here with something left in the tank. So he\u2019s set things up wonderfully for July.\u201dVingegaard joins the greats before Pogacar<\/p>\n

Vingegaard\u2019s Giro win puts him alongside Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali and Chris Froome as riders to have won the Giro, Tour and Vuelta.<\/p>\n

He is also the first rider of his generation to complete the set. Pogacar, despite his four Tour de France wins and dominance across much of the calendar, has not yet won the Vuelta.<\/p>\n

That detail adds another edge to the rivalry before the Tour de France begins in Barcelona. Vingegaard has not beaten Pogacar head-to-head in a Grand Tour since the 2023 Tour, and the Slovenian has carried the aura of the sport\u2019s dominant force through the past two seasons. Italy gave Vingegaard a result Pogacar has not yet matched: the full Giro, Tour and Vuelta set.<\/p>\n

\u201cJonas has had accidents and injuries and he\u2019s been overshadowed in the last few editions of the Tour,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why I think it was important, off the back of winning the Vuelta, he kept winning. I don\u2019t think we can understate the importance of him sitting in this pantheon of greats now of winning all of the Grand Tours ahead of Tadej.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard\u2019s final day in Rome was largely ceremonial until Jonathan Milan won the sprint, but the wider achievement was already secure. Visma had controlled the Giro through the mountains, Sepp Kuss added the queen stage, and Vingegaard turned almost every major climbing test into another demonstration of superiority.<\/p>\n

Tour de France warning follows Giro dominance<\/p>\n

The Giro also brought Vingegaard back into the centre of the wider legacy conversation. His 2024 crash had left him fighting to return to the highest level, while Pogacar\u2019s subsequent dominance raised questions about whether the balance of their rivalry had shifted for good.<\/p>\n

Stephens sees the Giro as a forceful answer. \u201cIt might seem like a small detail and it\u2019s only maybe a small flex but Jonas, if he needs reminding, now sits with the greats,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the consistent thing about the team is that they\u2019ve got Jonas there and he is a ferocious competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard was visibly emotional after sealing the race, especially with his family present in Rome. The historical weight of the victory sat alongside the personal moment, with the Dane closing three weeks in pink by completing a set very few riders have ever managed. \u201cHe got emotional with his kids there,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cHe\u2019s just won the Giro d\u2019Italia. He\u2019s just become one of the greatest cyclists of all time. He already is but to add this is a big moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tour now becomes the next test of what this Giro has shown. Pogacar will arrive as the reigning Tour champion and the rider Vingegaard still has to measure himself against directly. Vingegaard arrives with the Grand Tour Triple Crown complete, another dominant three-week performance behind him, and Stephens convinced the best version may still be waiting. \u201cHe needs to sit, reflect with his family for maybe a week,\u201d Stephens added. \u201cBut he\u2019s in a great place. And I cannot wait to see them clash in July.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next comparison will come on the road rather than in the studio. Vingegaard has rebuilt momentum through the Giro, but July will bring Pogacar, the Tour de France and the rivalry that still defines the top of the sport.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThis isn\u2019t Jonas at his peak. Remember that,\u201d Stephens said on TNT Sports. \u201cHe\u2019s wiped the floor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,20995,9046,101,8782,36242,6549,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-giro-ditalia","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618311","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=618311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}