A few years back, Jonas Vingegaard struggled to find a team to sign him. Now the former fish-factory worker is surviving the heat of the Tour de France and is close to his first title.
When fish factory worker turned cyclist Jonas Vingegaard signed with Jumbo-Visma in 2019 no other team was interested in the man who is now on course to win this year's Tour de France.
Riders have worn ice vests at stage starts and finishes, and Ineos Grenadiers brought an inflatable ice bath. Even the nation's vast sunflower fields look sad, wilting in oppressive conditions like most of the snow on the once white-capped Alps, which have turned rocky, brown and barren. Jonas Vingegaard cracked his rival Tadej Pogačar in the Alps on stage 11 to take the yellow jersey, and he has held it ever since.
"His plan is to be really strong and not to crack, but I think that if today I had Rafal Majka with me, or [Marc] Soler or George Bennett," Pogačar said of his teammates who had withdrawn, "with Brandon and Mikkel [Bjerg] and everyone we could have made a harder race and maybe already cracked Jonas before.When Jumbo-Visma sports director Merijn Zeeman signed Vingegaard ahead of the 2019 season he said the Dane was incredibly happy he could turn pro.
Physiologically, the 25-year-old has all the attributes of a Tour de France contender. He is very lithe, can climb, obviously, and time trial. Vingegaard is less boisterous perhaps because of how he has arrived at this point, and maybe because Jumbo-Visma has been in this position before, only to lose the maillot jaune at the 11th hour.He made his Tour debut last season as a substitute for Dutch champion Tom Dumoulin, employed to support Primoz Roglic in his title bid. Roglic abandoned it due to crash-related injuries. Vingegaard went on to finish second overall to Pogačar.
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