![\"tourdetrump](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tourdetrump-donaldtrump-672a0b2c66256.jpg@webp.webp\")
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The plane was Air Force One. Trump was in Evian-les-Bains for the G7 summit, held from June 15 to 17 on the French side of Lake Geneva, close enough to the Swiss border for the security operation to spill into the routes Vingegaard\u2019s group needed.<\/p>\n
Air Force One, closed borders and a four-hour delay<\/p>\n
Vingegaard had travelled towards the Alps after winning the Giro d\u2019Italia and taking a short period of rest. Tignes was the base for one of the final building blocks before the Grand Depart in Barcelona, but the journey there quickly became a reminder that even the best-controlled Tour preparation can run into problems beyond the team bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him: which plane was there then?\u201d Van Hooydonck continued. \u201cThat turned out to be Air Force One. Donald Trump was in Evian-les-Bains at the time for the G7 summit. We had not stopped to think at all about how much impact that has on a country.\u201d<\/p>\n
With world leaders, delegations and security services moving through the region, the route out of Switzerland became blocked. Van Hooydonck said the group tried to continue towards Tignes before accepting that the evening plan was slipping away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe then wanted to drive to Tignes, but we spent four hours in the car just trying to get out of the country,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the border crossings were closed. We were stuck in a traffic jam… It was frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has some cycling history from his Tour de Trump creation<\/p>\n
A strange start to Vingegaard\u2019s final Tour block<\/p>\n
The delay forced the group into a late change of plan. Rather than pushing on towards Tignes, they stopped near Geneva and found a hotel, already wary that the next morning could bring more of the same disruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt one point, we really thought: we need to sleep somewhere, otherwise we are not going to get to Tignes at a decent hour,\u201d Van Hooydonck said. \u201cWe pulled over by the side of the road, just over the Swiss border, because we were already taking into account that it would be the same the next day. That way, at least, we could drive freely towards Tignes the following morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only once they checked the route the next day did the scale of the delay become fully clear. \u201cWe found a hotel fifteen minutes from Geneva,\u201d Van Hooydonck added. \u201cThe next morning I looked at the route from that hotel to the airport. It was a fifteen-minute route, and it had taken us four hours. It was really terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vingegaard still made it to Tignes and completed the camp that now forms part of his Tour build-up after Giro success. On the eve of the race, though, Van Hooydonck\u2019s revelation adds an unlikely scene to the Dane\u2019s road to Barcelona: a Tour favourite stuck near Geneva, waiting for the security bubble around Air Force One to clear before he could climb towards altitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The plane was Air Force One. Trump was in Evian-les-Bains for the G7 summit, held from June…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,9046,188435,101,36242,6549,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-672245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-nathan-van-hooydonck","tag-sports","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\/672245","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=672245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}