Vigegaard wins easy-cheesy Giro d'Italia
Danish star preps for Tour de France by going only as fast as required.
Jonas Vingegaard came into this Giro with two goals. Numero uno: win his first Giro. Numero due, win the Giro using the absolute bare minimum amount of energy required so he’d ready to beat Tadej Pogacar in Le Tour.
Two Missions Accomplished.
Vingegaard won four stages and the overall by over four minutes. It was doubtful he ever truly went into the red zone. Maybe a minute or two on the Blockhaus climb. After that, keep winning without sweating. Build a bigger time gap without burning his reserves.
His Visma Lease-a-Bike squad supported him brilliantly. He almost always had three climber domestiques shredding his rivals. And once Vingegaard did hit the gas, it was a steady depress on the pedal. Just enough to drop Felix Gall, who was the only man in the race even capable of sticking with him for a few hundred meters.
One would argue that the most dangerous rival in this Giro was a bug. The illness that went through the peloton and ruined the hopes of guys like Giulio Pellizzari. Only after a disappointing time trial by Vingegaard, did we learn he too was suffering with a cold.
The Dane even had enough resources to beat off the cold and get back to dominating the summit finishes. But not in an exhausting, excessive fashion. When he had a chance to gift a win to a teammate on stage 19, he did just that. Sepp Kuss said thank you very much boss.
There was simply no need to get the hammer out of the toolbox. No need to go into the hurt locker. It was almost a Chris Froome type of vibe — the careful monitoring of watts and effort levels.
You could also say chapeau to Visma’s sports scientists who helped dial in the exact minimum requirements for him to secure victory and still show up at Le Tour ready to attack.
The cycling world will be anticipating the Vingegaard vs Pogacar battle. And we’ll discover if the claims from Visma’s sports directors are true. Their assertion that Vingegaard needs the Giro to be stronger in the French grand tour.
Until that day there will be a digital avalanche of content about just how ready Vingegaard will be. Hard to quantify in a vacuum when Pogacar wasn’t in Italy. There’s no doubt it’s still a two man battle with other rivals already scheming how to grab the final podium spot.
Fr now, Vingegaard can be happy that all his Giro — and by extension — his Tour plans have gone to perfection. He has his first Giro but can he now win his third Tour de France?