{"id":1954158,"date":"2026-05-25T07:52:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954158"},"modified":"2026-05-25T07:52:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:52:34","slug":"dont-blame-jonas-vingegaard-if-the-2026-giro-ditalia-is-boring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954158","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Blame Jonas Vingegaard if the 2026 Giro d’Italia Is Boring"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/giro-20206-ditalia-vingegaard.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Andrew Hood<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Updated May 25, 2026 05:12AM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s be honest \u2014 the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia and the efficient domination of Jonas Vingegaard has hardly been a three-week fireworks display.<\/p>\n

The racing has been controlled. The \u201cBig Start\u201d in Bulgaria was a bust, and even with the Giro\u2019s famous third week looming, this route is borderline unimaginative. And the field is thinner than a plate of tagliolini pasta.<\/p>\n

Yet somewhere in the background, the murmur started that it\u2019s Vingegaard who is making this race boring.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old is closing in on becoming just the eighth rider in cycling history to win all three grand tours. How can that be boring?<\/p>\n

No. This Giro was \u201cmezzo cotto\u201d \u2014 undercooked \u2014 long before the two-time Tour de France champion Vingegaard arrived.<\/p>\n

Look no further than Sunday\u2019s pancake flat sprint stage into Milan. When the world\u2019s eyes were on the Giro on its primetime weekend spot, RCS Sport serves up a boring sprint stage that\u2019s a guaranteed snooze fest.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike have done almost everything right.<\/p>\n

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They came in as pre-race favorites, they have raced like pre-race favorites, and the Killer Bees have controlled the race the way GC super teams are expected to.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard has attacked when he needed to and already won three stages. He has the pink jersey and a commanding lead. That\u2019s the job.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

The problem is just about everything else about the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n

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Why the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia is missing its stars<\/h2>\n
\"Narvaez
Narv\u00e1ez stepped up for UAE during the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia after the team was gutted with illness and injuries.<\/span> (Photo: Zac Williams\/Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many things wrong with this Giro. First off is the starting lineup.<\/p>\n

The 2026 Giro is missing at least one more \u201cfuoriclasse,\u201d that elite, game-changing type of rider who would have elevated the race.<\/p>\n

The fact that Vingegaard is here at all is what gives this race most of the spice that it does have.<\/p>\n

Most striking is the absence of Tadej Poga\u010dar, who shapes races even when he doesn\u2019t race.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Pogi paradox: when he races, people complain it\u2019s getting predictable. When he doesn\u2019t, you realize how much sheer excitement he packs just by being there.<\/p>\n

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Even when the outcome feels inevitable, the racing almost never is. Pogi is good value.<\/p>\n

When Poga\u010dar showed up in 2024, the tifosi<\/em> went bonkers. Vingegaard is world-class and races like a champion, but he just doesn\u2019t generate the same buzz as The Pog.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Almeida would have at least made things more interesting at the top. He took Vingegaard deep in last year\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, but illness knocked him out before the start. UAE\u2019s Plan B, Adam Yates, was KO\u2019d in the stage 1 chaos.<\/p>\n

So that meant the long-running UAE vs. Visma grand tour super team rivalry that went 1-2 in every grand tour last year was neutered before the Giro even started.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Paul Seixas, the most hyped racer in cycling right now.<\/p>\n

The French phenom would have blown this race up and perhaps made it the grand tour of the year. And yes, sending him to the Tour makes sense, but Seixas could have challenged Visma almost single-handedly, and he might have won.<\/p>\n

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Even the sprinter field is off. Jonathan Milan, the big star of this pack, hasn\u2019t won a stage yet. There\u2019s no Wout van Aert or Mathieu van der Poel to add star power on the flat days.<\/p>\n

And many of the riders who are here have been hit by illness, crashes, or early time losses. There is no true rival in the fight for pink.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not Vingegaard\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

How the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia\u2019s \u2018Big Start\u2019 backfired<\/h2>\n
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The Giro has had its moments and younger riders stepped into the vacuum. <\/span> (Photo: Harry Talbot\/Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The three-day start in Bulgaria might have sounded good on paper, but it had none of the trademark Giro passione<\/em> that a grande partenza<\/em> is supposed to feel like.<\/p>\n

These overseas adventures are great for Giro owner RCS Sport\u2019s bottom line and they look wonderful on television. But in terms of sporting spectacle, they deflate a grand tour right from the start.<\/p>\n

Organizers deliberately keep the opening overseas stages easy to justify the long travel distance, and the first stages back in Italy tend to be short parades as well.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s roughly a quarter of the race traded away for PR and profits.<\/p>\n

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So when the big hits came \u2014 Blockhaus, Corno alle Scale and last weekend\u2019s Alpine finale at Pila \u2014 Visma arrived fresh enough to put everyone in their place.<\/p>\n

We got lucky that the longest time trial in a Giro in a decade didn\u2019t completely settle the race last week. Vingegaard had an off day, not a full-blown crisis, but he struggled, so at least some intrigue survived into the weekend.<\/p>\n

The Giro\u2019s infamous final week still looms. Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday are all monster stages.<\/p>\n

Giro magic can still happen, but Vingegaard has run a near-perfect race on a course that barely tested him.<\/p>\n

And if everyone else is out the back, is that his fault? No.<\/p>\n

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Missing the point of a grand tour<\/h2>\n
\"Giro
The Giro\u2019s final week still looms. <\/span> (Photo: Zak Williams\/Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Something else is getting lost in the grumbling about this Giro.<\/p>\n

Yes, the course is underwhelming and the field is thin. But this is still a grand tour, and three weeks is a long time<\/em>. Every stage cannot be Strade Bianche or a summit finish up the Zoncolan wall.<\/p>\n

There is always some boredom baked into the DNA of any grand tour, and that ironically enough is part of the allure of one of sport\u2019s great endurance tests.<\/p>\n

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Vingegaard will spend 95 percent of this race buried in the bunch, invisible, conserving watts and managing fatigue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how grand tours are won. The point is not to be first every day \u2014 it is to be first on the final day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Giro, the Tour, the Vuelta are about surviving, enduring, conserving, and attacking at exactly the right moment. That\u2019s what Vingegaard has done across this Giro.<\/p>\n

And this Giro has shown new sides of Vingegaard\u2019s personality. He\u2019s coming alive on Victor Campenaert\u2019s vlogs and he stood tall for the peloton in Sunday\u2019s chaotic finale in Milan.<\/p>\n

The Giro\u2019s final week still looms. Riders who look comfortable so far begin to crack under accumulated fatigue, and sometimes riders who looked cooked find something no one saw coming.<\/p>\n

A repeat of a Simon Yates coup against Isaac del Toro from 2025 looks unlikely, and if no one cracks Vingegaard, that is not his fault.<\/p>\n

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He prepared for this Giro, and Visma is executing its plan precisely.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard is also thinking beyond Sunday\u2019s finish in Rome, and the Giro-Tour double in July and the rematch with Poga\u010dar is already on his mind.<\/p>\n

Every watt conserved here is a pedal stroke banked for the Tour.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard came here to win a grand tour, and he\u2019s on track to become just the eighth rider in cycling history to win all three.<\/p>\n

A week after this Giro ends, the only thing anyone will remember is who won.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard is not boring the Giro to death. He is winning it. Those are not the same thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Andrew Hood<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Updated May 25, 2026 05:12AM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/giro-20206-ditalia-vingegaard.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated May 25, 2026 05:12AM Let\u2019s be honest \u2014 the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia and the efficient domination of Jonas Vingegaard has hardly been a three-week fireworks display. The racing has been controlled. The \u201cBig Start\u201d in Bulgaria was a bust, and even with the Giro\u2019s famous third week looming, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1954158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}