Jonas Vingegaard recently ended his mixed 2025 cycling season with winning the Vuelta a España with a victory at the Saitama Criterium in the absence of Tadej Pogacar. The show race in Japan caused scorn and ridicule from compatriot Mads Pedersen, which the Danish superstar now countered.
“It was really so terrible to watch because none of the riders even tried to give the impression that they were doing a real bike race,” the sprint expert recently said in his “Lang Distance” podcast. Vingegaard prevailed near Tokyo ahead of Kaden Groves (Alpecin – Deceuninck). Davide Stella (UAE – Emirates – Gen-Z) came third.
But the three-time winner of the Tour de France didn’t want to just let the harsh criticism of the event in the land of the rising sun stand. “It’s clear that it’s probably not the hardest bike race over there. But it’s still ridden hard, so it wasn’t easy to win there,” the captain of Visma – Lease a Bike told Ekstra Bladet.
Cycling: Show race a “good experience” for Vingegaard
But Vingegaard also admitted: “I think that many of us do the races there more because of the trip, if you can put it that way. But I think it was a good experience. Both the bike race and the whole trip to Japan.” The 28-year-old had to survive an early shocking moment with a fall.
The course of the race in Japan was more or less choreographed. With his former teammate Primoz Roglic from Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, Vingegaard broke away from the peloton. In the final, Vingegaard left the Slovenian behind and drove to victory as a soloist, Roglic was swallowed up by the field again.
The Dane can look back on a mixed year. He clearly missed his desired third success in the Tour de France in the giant duel with Pogacar in the summer and came to Paris more than four minutes behind. In the high flyer’s absence, Vingegaard won the Vuelta a Espana in September for the first time in his career.