{"id":87205,"date":"2025-08-23T10:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T10:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/87205\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T10:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T10:28:09","slug":"explosive-finishes-could-cost-jonas-vingegaard-at-vuelta-a-espana-as-visma-lease-a-bike-star-opens-up-on-racing-without-tadej-pogacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/87205\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosive finishes ‘could cost’ Jonas Vingegaard at Vuelta a Espana as Visma Lease a Bike star opens up on racing without Tadej Pogacar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is going for glory at this year’s Vuelta a Espana<\/a>, but one of his potential rivals for the red jersey says that explosive finishes “could cost” the Dane.It was only last month that Vingegaard was competing at the Tour de France, finishing in second<\/a> and some distance behind great rival Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), as – for the fifth year in a row – they made it a one-two at cycling’s blue riband event.<\/p>\n

The question, therefore, on people’s lips is whether Vingegaard’s exertions at the Tour mean he is in top shape, or whether he is drained from a gruelling three weeks of trying to chase down Pogacar?<\/p>\n

Either way, he is most people’s hot favourite for a first red jersey, in a race that will be live on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one of Vingegaard’s general classification rivals that will be at the Vuelta is Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step), and the Spaniard suggested one area where the Dane might be vulnerable.<\/p>\n

“He [Vingegaard] was at his best in the Tour, but Pogacar was even better,” Landa told Marca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He will be the big favourite here. Explosive finishes could cost him, but he will control the race with a great team.”<\/p>\n

Pogacar and Vingegaard have been going at each other for years, but following the Tour, the Slovenian admitted he may not have long left in the sport, a move that Landa suspected was down to its timing.<\/p>\n

“You don’t have to decide anything right after the Tour, because the fatigue is extreme. <\/p>\n

“It’s a unique generation, and we will see how long it lasts. I’ve always lived off the desire to win – that keeps me going.”<\/p>\n

Landa, who will be without Remco Evenepoel in Spain after the Belgian left Soudal for Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe<\/a>, added of his expectations for the final Grand Tour of the year: “It’s a very tough Vuelta. I’m excited about the Bilbao stage, because of the people and the family on the road. <\/p>\n

“Also the stages in Asturias, especially the tour around Angliru and Morredero.”<\/p>\n

Vingegaard on racing without Pogacar and his own condition<\/p>\n

Vingegaard was asked on the eve of the Vuelta beginning whether it will be easier or harder – the latter perhaps inviting more pressure – without Pogacar in the race.<\/p>\n

“Of course on the one hand it’s easier, but on the other hand it also might be harder,” the Visma leader said.<\/p>\n

“When he [Pogacar] is there, everything is to try to beat him, of course now they [UAE Team Emirates-XRG] have two riders, so of course it’s very different.”<\/p>\n

On his own condition ahead of the three-week race, Vingegaard was positive.<\/p>\n

“I’m feeling good,” he said. “It’s been a quick four weeks I would say, I feel like I just finished the Tour and now I’m here.<\/p>\n

“But on the other hand it’s been nice to be a bit at home, to relax a bit and then start training again.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully we have a strong team, and hopefully I’m strong myself and I can do some good efforts on the climbs and then we’ll see.”<\/p>\n

Pogacar might be absent in Spain, but looking ahead, could next season see a battle between the two stars in the one-day classics? And is Vingegaard thinking about it?<\/p>\n

“At the moment, not really but you never know, it depends,” the Dane said. <\/p>\n

“Now I said I want to do the European Championships and if that goes well I might change my view on it.<\/p>\n

“The reason that I haven’t done it in the last years is because I’ve never really performed in one-day races, so I felt like I was wasting my time because I knew that I would not perform there, so maybe in the future, you never know.”<\/p>\n

Watch and stream every stage of La Vuelta 2025 live on TNT Sports and discovery+.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is going for glory at this year’s Vuelta a Espana, but one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,9046,101,56,54,55,20998],"class_list":{"0":"post-87205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-jonas-vingegaard","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-vuelta-a-espana"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87205","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=87205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}