“I’ve come here to win the Vuelta, that’s pretty clear, so of course that’s going to be my goal. There could be different scenarios, but my goal and the team’s goal is to win the Vuelta. If I do that, then it’ll be a success.”
Jonas Vingegaard is confident. So he should be. He begins the Vuelta a España in Turin on Saturday as the red hot favourite. There’s no Tadej Pogačar, his arch rival who has beaten him in the past two Tours de France, and similarly there’s no Remco Evenepoel, or four-time Vuelta victor Primož Roglič. According to Visma-Lease a Bike insiders, Vingegaard’s performance metrics post-Tour have improved, rather than worsened. The Vuelta, if all goes as planned, ought to be a procession. João Almeida and Juan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s co-leaders, shouldn’t be able to match him.
Ten of the 21 stages culminate in uphill finishes – that’s fertile ground for taking time on opponents when you’re a lightweight, powerful climber like Vingegaard. The Dane is naturally a shy, quiet figure, but he’s comfortable in the spotlight, too. This expectation doesn’t bother him.
“To be honest, I don’t feel like there’s more pressure. I think if you see it in the way that the Tour de France is where there is most media, most everything, that’s where there is the most pressure,” the 28-year-old tells the press, two days before the race gets underway in Italy. “Compared to the Tour de France and what I’ve experienced there, it doesn’t feel like more pressure at the Vuelta. Of course I’m one of the top favourites here so there is some pressure but I’m just happy to be here, to go for the win. If you’re a top favourite it means you’re a good bike rider and hopefully I can be that here, and turn it into my advantage so that when everyone says I’m the big favourite hopefully I can be the best guy as well. I’ve always had a lot of goals in my career, and one has definitely been the Vuelta a España. Winning this race is one of those.”
Vingegaard matched Pogačar in the final week of the Tour de France, but by then he was already four minutes adrift of the Slovenian, having lost big chunks of time in the two time trials and the stage to Hautacam. Since then he’s had time to study what went wrong. “We think that we’ve figured out at least part of it [the reason], but that’s something we’ll keep as our secret,” he says. “You can always have some off days, but you just better hope that it doesn’t happen, and that I’ve had my off days this year.”
Vingegaard finished second to Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France for a third time this July. Photo by Zac Williams/SWPix.com.
What could prevent him from winning in Madrid on September 14 is the mere fact that he completed the Tour. Almeida and Ayuso, the two riders he singled out repeatedly as his biggest rivals, didn’t; Almeida rode eight stages before abandoning with a broken rib, and Ayuso wasn’t even selected. Fresher legs can make a difference in the final week of a Grand Tour – but it must be highlighted that the Vuelta’s toughest tests are in the middle week.
“For me it’s pretty hard to say anything about that,” Vingegaard says when asked how strong he will be. “We will see in the first stages if I’m at 90, 95 or 100%. But obviously it’s very hard to say you’ve had the best possible preparation because I did the Tour de France and this year the Vuelta has come very shortly afterwards. It’s definitely a better preparation physically to go to altitude [rather than to go to the Tour] and you also need to look at the mental side of it because I’d say it can obviously be an advantage not to go the Tour de France.”
The last time Vingegaard raced the Vuelta was in 2023 when he finished second to Sepp Kuss, with a third Jumbo-Visma man, Roglič, rounding out the podium. It was an unprecedented team success, but also one fraught with tension and accusations of a lack of leadership. Was Kuss ably supported? Racing actions suggested not. “We in the team can all be pretty happy with how it ended,” Vingegaard reflects. “1-2-3 in the general classification, I don’t think it has ever happened before and it’s going to be a lot of years before it probably happens again. It’s something we can all be very proud of.”
This time Vingegaard has Kuss for company again, as well as his fellow American Matteo Jorgenson. A podium whitewash looks far less likely, and an unobstructed cruise to the title, Vingegaard’s third Grand Tour, is far more probable. “I think I’ve had the best possible preparation I could have had for this race,” he smiles. “I’m really looking forward to this race and racing on all the climbs. It’d be very nice for me if I could win.”
