Jonas Vingegaard: “It’s very good for both of us that Pogacar and I have it, it makes us stronger”

Jonas Vinggaard, Danish, 26, fishmonger when he was young, Trin’s husband and Frida’s father, It is such enviable beings that on December 12th, to say one day, they know where they will be and what they will do on 17.15th of May 3rd next year, to set another day, and a few years in advance the apartment is already rented for the holiday, and they did it. And perhaps last February 23, when the year began under the snow in Lugo he ran the O Gran Camiño You’ve already guessed that five months later, on July 23, you’ll be posing for a cover photo the team He wears a yellow shirt and carries yellow sunflowers (a cute homage to Team Jumbo, the Dutch team, via Van Gogh) in the courtyard of a hotel in the middle of the French countryside, where he slept while commuting from Vosges to Paris. He has five hours before the start of the final stage of his second victorious Tour at Saint-Quentin Olympic Racecourse, on the Rue-Laurent-Vignon. He won it, 5 minutes 17 seconds ahead of the second, Tadej Pogacar. The biggest difference since 2014. He wears a dark jersey with three colored stripes, like a flag, pink, yellow, red, on the chest, in reference to his Tours, Giro and Vueltas won by his Jumbo teammate Primoz Roglic. On Saturday night, upon arriving at Le Markstein at 10:30 p.m., he first had a drink of lager, which he shared with the team mechanic; Then he celebrated it at supper with his fellows, and drank a ‘big’ real ale, of Westmalle, a Trappist with 9.5% alcohol, to wash down a good piece of meat and some croquettes for supper. “For the first time in many months, we ate without thinking so much about the right nutritional values, but about what we wanted to eat. It’s time to have fun, ”says Vingegaard, who ended the dinner with a speech of thanks to his colleagues. “I told them that I am very proud of them, that I am very proud of the way we raced as a team, how we followed the plan and everyone supported it. And of course I thanked everyone.”

ask. Planning, planning… is that right? Five months ago, did you already know what you were going to do each day, every hour of the year?

Answer. Yes Yes. Everything I did this year was kind of, I can’t say preparing for the Tour de France, because I also wanted to win other races, but obviously the big goal was the Tour and everything we did was for the Tour. And yeah, I’m very happy with the way everything turned out, winning in Galicia, Izuleia, Dauphiné…and now the Tour, of course. It’s been a really great year.

s. Is there no place in your life for the unexpected? Is everything planned?

R was found. Yes, most of the time, in December, in training camp, we make an annual plan, and in the first half of the year I already know what I have to do, when to do it, how, where I’m going, where I’m at every moment. I always know when to fly ahead of time, and I’m very strict. We know that well in advance. So it is very easy to manage.

s. And is it so in your daily life, as a couple, as a family? Don’t you have days when you don’t know what you’re going to do the next day?

R was found. Often there is no room for surprise. We don’t often go on a city trip or something, but sometimes we say at night that we want to go eat somewhere. So we go to a restaurant, it’s probably the most impulsive thing we do, something like that.

s. Pogacar admitted on Saturday that a weekend in the Alps, Grand Colombier, Joux Blanc and Mont Blanc, he already knew he wasn’t feeling well, and it was getting worse every day. Did you realize did you notice that it is not Taj the Great?

R was found. I don’t know. I mean, I think he was still at a very, very high level. It was a very good fight we had. And I’m happy with the competition I had here with him.

s. But even smelling it, he didn’t attack, choosing to follow the plan patiently, hitting the time trial on Tuesday, and finishing on the Col de la Loze the next day…

R was found. When we started the year we thought we were going to be able to win the Tour de France. Of course, you can’t be 100% sure, but we believed it, and that’s the only thing. If you stop believing, you won’t win. We just had to keep believing, keep believing that the plan was going to work at some point. We believed in our plan. We really believed in it and followed it every day. Obviously, we were always trying to fight for victory, but we were willing to die trying. You die with the plan. Some days we had a defensive plan, which we did. Had I seen him weak, I might have tried, but I didn’t notice.

s. Have you ever felt like taking your earphone off your ear and embarking on an adventure?

R was found. No, no, but managers sometimes tell me that if I feel like there’s a time to attack, to go for it, even if it’s not planned.

s. But apart from that, he was seen as more confident in his abilities than last year, and much calmer…

R was found. Yes, I think I was more confident. I was more relaxed this year. More… yes how do you say? Just those two things. I really believed in the plan, and that gave me a lot of confidence, a lot of confidence Mindfulness…, very calm.

s. It is useful to think, for example, if I don’t win, nothing will happen, I already won last year. Do you think so?

R was found. Yes Yes. If I win, I win, if I don’t win, there is nothing to do. If you lose for the better, that’s it. Luckily after that I can say but yeah I won it last year so it wouldn’t be a shame.

s. From the outside, it gave the impression of an exchange of characters, Pogacar more defensive, You more offensive… As if they were two people who knew each other so much that they wanted to be like each other…

R was found. actually. Tadge was very aggressive last year and I was very defensive… Now we’re close to the middle. Maybe he’s a little less aggressive, and I’m a little more… I like that one day he goes on the attack and me the next. It was a good fight. Too beautiful for the viewer. And also I think we really enjoyed the fight we had here.

s. Does it feel like winning your second round leaves you different than last year?

R was found. Yes, it was different last year because it was the first time and it felt, above all, good, and this year the feeling was like how happy and very proud I was to win the Tour again. And it’s probably even more important to win it a second time, but in some ways, last year’s sigh of relief was a lot bigger.

s. Deep down, he probably already knew he was going to win, but fans probably wouldn’t see it that way. Was your victory an affirmation in front of them?

s. To be honest, I don’t really think about what other people might think. I just focus on myself. We thought he could win the Tour de France again and we made the plan for that and he really went for it. I don’t think it was ever going to be confirmed or anything like that. I just thought of trying to win the Tour de France again.

s. Last year, your team came with two captains, a roguelike and you. Was this more comfortable, you alone at the wheel?

R was found. Yeah, I mean, of course, it’s different for me. You just have to think of yourself. Also, maybe our plan should be different than it was last year. You can run differently with two leaders, of course. In this sense, it is different, and there is also more pressure on me, but I have no problem dealing with pressure. So, in that sense, for me it doesn’t matter if there is more or less pressure.

s. I was ready.

R was found. Yes exactly. I think I also showed this year that I can… If you can’t handle the pressure, you’ll never win the Tour de France in the first place. But, yeah, since I’ve been working all this year, not just on the Tour, I think I’ve shown again that I can handle it.

s. Could he have done the same thing last year without Roglic?

R was found. I guess I was at a different time, I wasn’t as confident as this. Now I believe more in my strengths as a cyclist. I just had to try to get the best of me.

s. In a couple of months, you should start thinking about the 2024 Tour. How do you experience that moment? With the annoyance of starting the same routine all over again? with Ilusion?

R was found. No, I’m actually looking forward to it, because I also enjoy preparing for the Tour de France. It’s something very special, the way we prepare. And I’m always trying to figure out how I can improve even more and find the little details that make the difference. I love this part of the year.

s. What would your life be like if Pogacar didn’t exist?

R was found. I’m so glad he’s there, because, as it is, he’s the strongest in the Tour de France. It’s good for me and him too that we have each other, and also for the race, because I think there wouldn’t be much action if one of us wasn’t here.

s. Is it a symbiotic relationship? Do you make him stronger and he is you?

R was found. Yes Yes. It can be said like this. It makes us both stronger. exactly.

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