For cycling superstar Jonas Vingegaard, only one thing counts this season: the Dane wants to beat his great adversary Tadej Pogacar. Not only at the Tour de France, as his national coach showed through.
Does Jonas Vingegaard target the World Championships in Rwanda this year? “I think he definitely does that,” replied the Danish national coach Mörköv to “Feltet.dk”: “He has expressed that he was pursuing this as one of his season goals.”
The road cycling World Cup takes place in Kingali from September 21 to 28 and thus for the first time in the 100-year history of the World Championships in Africa. A total of 13 decisions are made.
Mörköv explained: “It is a distance that suits him. He is a driver of his best time and he could be the only one in the world that can beat the defending champion.” By that he meant the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar.
The World Cup will take place a week after the Spanish Vuelta, in which Vingegaard did not take part last year. The Algarve tour, the classic Paris-Nizza, the Catalonia Tour and the Criterium du Dauphiné are also planned. The most important race in the calendar is again the Tour de France, which the 29-year-old wants to win for the third time.
Harsh criticism of Visma – plugge reacts calmly
The victory at the largest bike race in the world is also on the agenda among his employer Visma – Lease A Bike. The Dutchman want to send a powerful team to the big loop this year to put the dominator of the previous year Tadej Pogacar in the barriers.
The racing team mainly relies on Vingegaard, but there are also numerous known names in the preliminary contingent. Simon Yates, Vuelta winner from 2018, has also been added to Wout van Aert, Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgensen since the beginning of the season. Victor Campenaerts, Tiesj Benoot and Christophe Laporte have also been appointed team.
However, there was a lot of criticism on each contingent, because: no single Dutch man has made it to the Tour-de-France squad.
An absurdity, the former cyclist Michael Boogerd opposed “Wielerfits”: “How can you ever describe this team as the flagship of Dutch cycling?” A bike is not about the level, the image or identity of Dutch cycling.
Team boss Richard Plugge recently accepted the criticism: “We believe that we have better chances with other drivers. With the eight selected drivers, we are in the best position to win the tour.”
Plugge was convinced that there will also be no Dutch in the team in the team.