{"id":2027732,"date":"2026-07-05T09:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2027732"},"modified":"2026-07-05T09:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:37:15","slug":"from-fear-of-death-to-tour-de-france-glory-redemption-and-reward-for-vingegaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2027732","title":{"rendered":"From Fear of Death to Tour de France Glory: Redemption and Reward for Vingegaard"},"content":{"rendered":"
The post-race scenes said everything. One by one the Visma-Lease a Bike riders embraced Jonas Vingegaard, congratulating him on what he had done.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood start, good start,\u201d said an emotional Victor Campenaerts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh man, f**k I\u2019m so happy,\u201d said Edoardo Affini.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the yellow jersey, buddy\u201d said Sepp Kuss.<\/p>\n
The relief was palpable, Jonas Vingegaard was back.<\/p>\n
Almost three full years after he last wore the Maillot Jaune, and two years and three months after he had a crash which could have killed him, the Dane finally donned the yellow jersey once again.<\/p>\n
He and his Visma-Lease a Bike team pulled out the perfect result in Saturday\u2019s team time trial at the Tour de France, averaging almost 54 km\/h on the 19.6km Barcelona course.<\/p>\n
That was enough to pummel Netcompany Ineos by eight seconds and UAE Emirates-XRG by 12.<\/p>\n
It was, Vingegaard said afterwards, a huge moment. It was also one which finally, fully turned a page after his high speed fall at the Itzulia Basque Country race in 2024.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s been a few bad years for me \u2026 I\u2019ve been at times struggling in the past few years, then now I feel like I can close this chapter in the book,\u201d the Dane said in the post-race press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will always be a part of my book, laying there in the ground believing that I am going to die. Coming from that to this is point is also for me a bit emotional \u2026 when you\u2019re on the ground, you don\u2019t think about cycling, I thought only about trying to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo come back to this it\u2019s a dream coming true \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
It is, and it gives him a small but psychologically significant advantage over Tadej Poga\u010dar and others on day one of the Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the biggest race of the world. It is an amazing victory for us,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd especially when it\u2019s a team time trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are eight guys, I have seven teammates who sacrificed for me today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the one wearing the yellow jersey after today but they also won the stage and we have to really enjoy this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two big crashes, two tough seasons<\/h2>\nIt\u2019s been a long time away from the top of the Tour GC for Vingegaard due to two big crashes (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Vingegaard leaped to prominence in 2022, defeating the then-double Tour champion Poga\u010dar in a thrilling battle. He repeated that achievement the following season and could have taken a third win had he not had his crash.<\/p>\n
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He battled back to race fitness but came up short in the 2024 Tour, ending up just over six minutes back.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard fixed his mind on regaining his Tour title but had another big fall in the 2025 Paris-Nice, suffering a concussion and missing over two and a half months of competition.<\/p>\n
He was once again on the back foot and he had to accept second in the Tour, although he was much closer in level to Poga\u010dar in the third week of racing.<\/p>\n
Last winter he announced a radical change in his race program, opting to ride the Giro d\u2019Italia for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n
Some saw it as an admission of sorts that he couldn\u2019t beat Poga\u010dar, with the Giro seen as a big plan B. Vingegaard insisted that wasn\u2019t the case, saying he wanted to complete a treble of grand tour victories and also to change his buildup for the Tour.<\/p>\n
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He duly won the Giro, taking five stages along the way. And, speaking to Wielerflits this week, he said that the change has done wonders for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure I\u2019m in a better place now than I was last year. Last year I maybe didn\u2019t enjoy racing as much as I have done this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe I was running a bit dry, just doing the same thing over and over again. I did basically the same program more or less for five years in a row, actually since I started doing the Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlready last year I wasn\u2019t super happy with the program. Not that I was not motivated, but I just find it more motivating this year to try to do something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A very bold strategy\u2019<\/h2>\nVisma-Lease a Bike combined strength and strategy to win the team time trial (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Ripping up his old race program wasn\u2019t the only major change for Vingegaard.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year Mathieu Heijboer stepped into the void left by the unexpected departure of Tim Heemskerk. The latter had coached Vingegaard for quite some time but Heijboer quickly clicked into place.<\/p>\n
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The two have gelled and the results are now clear.<\/p>\n
The Dane is back on song and back in yellow.<\/p>\n
Heijboer was himself emotional on Saturday, trying to hold back tears when speaking to WielerFlits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much is coming out. There\u2019s so much tension leading up to this team time trial. I have to honestly say that I considered us among the favorites, but I didn\u2019t think we were the top favorite,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a very bold strategy where we only let Jonas Vingegaard lead for one kilometer. But we believed in it and the guys did it: it\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s really great that Jonas Vingegaard is in yellow. A reward for him after everything he\u2019s been through.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The key to the strategy was, he said, weighing up each rider\u2019s strength and taking a gamble. \u201cWe decided not to have the climbers lead at all for the first fifteen kilometers. They managed it with five riders up to the base of the climbs, after which the rest could go full blast. That has been the key,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
Kuss took a big turn towards the end, then was followed by Matteo Jorgenson, who floored it on the descent between the two climbs.<\/p>\n
Davide Piganzoli then hammered it, giving Vingegaard a big leadout onto the climb. He did the rest, and won the stage as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to get carried away with an emotional result. But, as Vingegaard said, it\u2019s stil very early.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I am here to do the best possible GC and to try to win, but it is only stage 1 and there is a long way left. We have a small gap now but of course this is the perfect start for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t dream of a better start, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2284649925.jpg”] Shane Stokes Published July 5, 2026 03:37AM The post-race scenes said everything. One by one the Visma-Lease a Bike riders embraced Jonas Vingegaard, congratulating him on what he had done. \u201cGood start, good start,\u201d said an emotional Victor Campenaerts. \u201cOh man, f**k I\u2019m so happy,\u201d said Edoardo Affini. \u201cBack in the yellow […]<\/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-2027732","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\/2027732","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=2027732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2027732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2027732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2027732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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![\"Visma-Lease](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Z8C_7318.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")