When Jonas Vingegaard has turned the Tour de France upside down in the ninth stage and is cycling out of the finish, at the top of the Col du Granon, he holds his phone to his ear with his right hand. His helmet is off, on the other end of the line he hears the voice of his wife Trine. She was unable to follow the ride in France, but now that the 25-year-old Dane has achieved the most important victory in his cycling career, he first wants to speak to her and hear the voice of his daughter Frida.
He would not have been able to do all this without them, says Vingegaard when he appears in the press for the first time in the yellow jersey. Trine keeps him relaxed, says sports director Merijn Zeeman of Jumbo-Visma. She puts things into perspective, because not everything in life revolves around cycling, not even with a cycling professional.
Even if he wins a stage for the second time this Tour last Thursday on the Hautacam, Vingegaard quickly gets his phone in the hands of the press officer of his team. By driving away from his major competitor Tadej Pogacar for a minute on the last climb of this Tour de France, he can hardly miss the overall victory in his second Tour participation.
Tears in Copenhagen
Copenhagen, three weeks ago. The volume of Danish cycling fans in Tivoli Park rises when his name is called. Their hero, the man who surprisingly finished second in the Tour last year, is meters away from them. Tears roll from his eyes, but actually he wants to laugh. He can’t say much now, but every word that comes out of his mouth is greeted with cheers by the audience.
Jonas Vingegaard grows up in the northwest of Denmark. In a landscape without any height differences, the wind has free rein. Every member of the Thy Cykle Ring in Thisted knows that, the cycling club he joined as a young teenager. Because the club has no youth teams, he often cycles with men who are much older. While he already has the disadvantage of being smaller than many of his peers. It makes him tougher. If he has a bad day on his racing bike, he has to continue.
“As a teenager, Jonas had the wind not at his back, but full in his face,” said Ole Iversen, president of the Thy Cykle Ring. The first years he is still brought to the club by his parents. When Vingegaard gets to an age when he can cycle to training himself, he falls completely silent on the way back. His father has to pick him up at the side of the road.
And yet, everything at his cycling club shows, he loves cycling. Especially from competitions. In the car, he and his father Claus and mother Karina are on the road almost every weekend during the cycling season. The family travels all over the country. Hundred kilometers or double, the distance doesn’t matter. Sometimes it takes them up to four hours to get to a race. In the summer, the family goes on holiday to the French Alps, so that young Jonas can also climb. He would never have achieved this without his parents. You need that in cycling,” says Iversen.
No prizes
In order to continue to motivate less talented participants, many participants in Danish youth competitions receive a prize. “If thirty boys and girls participate, there will be a cup for ten afterwards,” said Iversen. But Vingegaard’s trophy cabinet remains fairly empty, despite the large number of races he drives. He is also still a lot smaller than his opponents. He has a lot more work to do.
At the cycling club, he mainly listens and looks closely at what the older and bigger boys are doing. He is quiet, they don’t hear him often. “The little, quiet boy at the back of the class, that was Jonas,” says Iversen.
Nobody sees him as a great cycling talent, even though he makes some progress every year. The kilometers in his legs are slowly counting, his energy on the racing bike remains good. Christian Andersen also notices this, who in 2016 is the trainer of the Danish continental team Colo Quick-Cult.
Within his team a spot becomes available that year, he would like to add Vingegaard to the team. Because of his cycling qualities, because a boy of his height who can compete in the strong Danish cycling competition, must have a certain talent. But his character also plays a role, says Andersen. “He was such a calm boy and a real team player.”
Vingegaard has only been riding for the team for six months when he shows his climbing qualities for the first time during the Tour of China. It is also noticeable that he gets along well with his bicycle. It is the result of the many times he had to dive into the right gap in the pack because of his height. He also trains more, but his life remains largely the same. Vingegaard works in a fish factory in Hanstholm. Cutting fish in the morning, cycling in the afternoon – he’s fine with it.
Structure in large round
Improving his cycling performance, Vingegaard is doing well in competitions for riders under the age of 23. He wins, among other things, a stage in the Tour de l’Avenir. Trainer Andersen is already in regular contact with Grischa Niermann, sports director at Jumbo-Visma at the end of 2018. That team has been following another young rider from Colo Quick-Cult for some time. “I told them to check out Jonas too,” Andersen recalls. He points out to Niermann the record that Vingegaard set on the Coll de Rates, a Spanish climb near Valencia well-known among cyclists.
Other WorldTour teams are showing interest, but Vingegaard and Andersen are only concerned with Jumbo-Visma. A conversation with sports leaders Zeeman and Niermann in the Netherlands follows. “Everything was right. But most of all we had the feeling that he would be treated very well by the team. Just what he needed,” Andersen says.
At Jumbo-Visma, Vingegaard is assigned coach Tim Heemskerk. Step by step, something is added to his guidance, not everything has to be done at once. His cycling life must be given more structure, he also wants that. “Jonas could still learn a lot in that area,” says general manager Richard Plugge.
When Vingegaard makes his debut in the Tour of Spain in 2020, sports director Zeeman is not yet completely satisfied with the way the Dane manages his affairs. He is still too much on the road, too busy with other things. But the structure of a Grand Tour is going to help him; a massage every morning, pay even better attention to his diet.
Vingegaard is doing well in the stages in Spain. Zeeman then knows, he now says, that his team has gold in their hands with the Dane. His real breakthrough came in the Coppa Bartali, an Italian cycling round, a year later. Vingegaard is the leader there for the first time, furthermore there are mainly riders from the Jumbo-Visma training team. He must declare what he wants. If he ever wants to win a Grand Tour, his leadership qualities must be developed, they know at Jumbo-Visma.
Vingegaard wins two stages and the general classification in Italy. It is above all a victory in itself. “He showed that he could handle the pressure. Then I knew that one day he would finish on the podium in a Grand Tour,” says Andersen, who still speaks to Vingegaard regularly. The two live in Denmark, 20 kilometers apart.
Tour debut as a learning moment
In his first Tour, last year, Vingegaard is the ultimate master servant of leader Primoz Roglic. If there is something wrong with his bicycle, he must hand over his copy to the Slovenian. He feels good about it, it is a real learning moment for him, he often says this year after the end of stages. When Roglic falls heavily – he will get out later – Vingegaard is suddenly the only leader of the team. “That might be the best thing that could have happened,” Andersen says. “It didn’t even make him nervous.”
At the end of last season it will be announced that he will be the leader in the Tour de France in 2022. Next to Roger. Vingegaard will remain himself, but will interfere more with team tactics, says his teammate Nathan van Hooydonck. He knows exactly what he wants. But what mainly concerns Vingegaard is his team. Just as he felt at ease with Colo Quick-Cult, he is now also at ease with Jumbo-Visma. “That’s when he performs at his best,” Andersen says.
Vingegaard still knows how to value the riders around him. When he has managed to keep his yellow jersey again in stage eighteen, he first hugs Wout van Aert, who helped him release Pogacar on the Hautacam. The Belgian has always told him that he can speak out more. Then he goes in search of the American Sepp Kuss, who was also important in the last mountain stage of this Tour.
Only he could not have done all this, Vingegaard knows. Trine and Frida are waiting in Paris on Sunday.