You’ll never see Jonas Vingegaard strutting around, dominating the room. You’ll never hear him talk about seeking revenge, seething with bitterness or regret. He’s too placid, temperate, tranquil for all of that. But at Visma-Lease a Bike’s 2025 team presentation, there was a noticeable confidence and conviction that their quiet, understated Danish superstar is hungry to get his own back. I’m coming for you, Tadej, was the message.
“I think my crash had a big impact on my season last year,” Vingegaard said, referencing his horror fall at April’s Itzulia Basque Country, “and I still made it back [for the Tour] to be there in a super high level after only six weeks of preparation.” He lost the Tour de France to Pogačar by six minutes but won a stage and was comfortably the Slovenian’s strongest challenger. “Because of the crash, so many things happened, and it gives me motivation to try again,” he said. “My big goal is to go for the third win in the Tour de France, and I still believe I can fight for victory there.”
Vingegaard, who turned 28 in December, was honest that he wasn’t capable of beating Pogačar in 2024, largely because of injury. But since then, he’s been on a mission to make sure that the Tour – the “holy grail”, as he calls it – becomes his race once again. “I do believe I can do a lot better, especially in the preparation three months before,” he said. The rarefied air of the high mountains has typically been Vingegaard’s strong point despite hailing from one of Europe’s flattest countries. But at the Tour in 2024, it was Pogačar who excelled above 2,000m. Vingegaard is focused on turning that specific dial back in his favour. “I still believe I can beat him, yes, and it might be at altitude,” he said. “Of course, if you had asked me two years ago, I’d have said that was my strength and where he was a bit less strong, but last year it seemed like he was strong in all aspects. I think we have to believe my strength is where we can make the difference.”
Image by James Startt
Pogačar, the man he will always be compared to, changed his coach and training after the 2023 season, but Vingegaard has resisted doing something similar. Evolution rather than revolution will bring him back to his best form. “Normally, I never do any gym work because I normally gain muscle quite quickly, but to try to regain what I lost last year, I’ve been doing a bit of gym sessions,” he said. “You have to always keep improving, see what you can do. I do think in the small details you can make a step, but basically, I still do the same training.” Of what he’s done so far this winter, he’s bullish. “I do feel like I have improved compared to last year and that I can get even better,” he added. “We also still believe I can improve as a cyclist, but it’s more about focusing on yourself, getting better every day, and seeing what the outcome will be.”
The plan for Vingegaard is that he’ll begin his season at the Volta ao Algarve in February, before then racing Paris-Nice and Volta a Catalunya. Interspersed between two blocks of altitude training ahead of the Tour will be the Critérium du Dauphiné. That stage race-heavy programme, in the absence of any one-day races, is a method that Visma believes in steadfastly. “In my eyes, Jonas is the best GC rider in the world, and Tadej is the best rider in the world who can do everything,” Visma’s lead sports director, Grischa Niermann, said. “For Jonas, it’s not that easy to show up at Liège and Lombardia and drop everybody. We want to win races, want to use everyone’s qualities in the best way, and using Jonas’s qualities in the best way is making him do stage races.”
Image by ASO
What Visma have discarded – for now – is Vingegaard copying Pogačar’s 2024 calendar and attempting the Giro-Tour double. Regaining yellow is just too important. “We were actually talking about going to the Giro d'Italia,” Vingegaard admitted. “But pretty soon, we realised that the main goal would always be the Tour de France. We were thinking about taking the Giro as a kind of preparation, but there are so many factors when you go to the Giro. How is the Giro [route]? How is the weather? How hard do you have to go every day? There are a lot of things you can’t control yourself. Then we realised that if you go on a training camp you can control every training [session] you do, and that’s probably better.”
So, a schedule he’s happy with, a training plan he’s got dialled in, what about the seven support riders? “I believe it’s a very strong team,” he said. Sepp Kuss, Matteo Jorgenson, Christophe Laporte, new signings Simon Yates and Victor Campenaerts, and either Wilco Kelderman or Steven Kruijswijk will be alongside him. “It’s maybe even stronger than it ever has been before,” Vingegaard added. Everything is in place for the battle to recommence this July.
*Cover image by James Startt
