Road cycling is an individual sport played by teams. Does winning as a collective feel more rewarding than as an individual?
"I definitely think so. That's what I feel, at least," said Jonas Vingegaard, back in the yellow jersey of the Tour de France for the first time in three years, after Visma-Lease a Bike's opening day win in Barcelona — the first TTT since 2019 and the first to kick off the Grande Boucle since 1971.
"We had an amazing start to the Tour and I think the boys will enjoy this tonight. I will enjoy it. The whole team will enjoy it. It gives us a lot of motivation to keep going."
A true collective win in cycling is a rare occurrence reserved only for TTTs. And it was fitting this one went to Visma-Lease a Bike — a team built on the back of teamwork (Vingegaard's two Tour wins relied heavily on collective might, where all the riders committed to a shared goal).
"It's a special discipline in cycling," said Vingegaard. "It's something in which we can take a bit of time."
However, due to the rule changes, this was the most individualistic TTT in history. To win it, the team leaders had to be chaperoned by their domestiques through the streets of Barcelona and then launched on the slopes of Montjuïc. All of Visma's rivals deployed the same tactic — get your leaders to the bottom as quickly and freshly as possible.
"Before the stage, I really believed in this tactic, but I must say, when there's a big headwind like there was today, it felt like we were going almost a bit easy at the start. In the first two kilometres I was thinking 'we have to go faster', but then they said on the radio that we were doing the best time. Looking at the watts, it was still hard in the wheels. When we have five big guys like we do, I think they can do a much better job on the flat, where me and Sepp [Kuss] cannot do much anyway — other than slowing them down, to be honest."
Vingegaard is the one in yellow, and the evidence from the final climb suggests that he has done more than simply maintain the form he was showing at the end of the Giro d'Italia. But, like after a conventional TTT, credit should go to all Visma riders, and in this case particularly to the dogged determination of Davide Piganzoli and Matteo Jorgenson who turned themselves inside out in the final 2km to set up their leader.
Piganzoli burst onto the scene in aid of Vingegaard at the Giro and when he was called up as the replacement for Classics big man Wout van Aert, a few eyebrows were raised — he isn't exactly a like-for-like substitute. On the final ramps, slipping off the back of Jorgenson and Vingegaard's wheels, he came back from the pits of hell to give his leader one final pull on the front. Visma were already ahead, but the Italian's effort put the result beyond doubt.
And then there's Jorgenson, who last year arrived at the Tour with protected leader status. After his final pull, Jorgenson slumped over his handlebars as he pulled off to the side and lost 2:30 in the final 800m. That's got to be one of the biggest blow-ups of the day. The American's general classification is over on stage one. Now that's a teammate.
It was an individualistic TTT perhaps, but the Visma collectively did it the best.
