He Jumbo It is not a normal team nor is what they do or want to achieve available to anyone. Such is his power that a cyclist named Remco Evenepoel, the last winner of the Vuelta, unquestionable a year ago at the start of the race, no longer dares to speak of victory, but of stepping on the podium in Madrid in what is still a distant september 17. And it is that with the duo Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic in action you have to think about it a lot to stick out your chest, say here I am… and come on, everyone run in my shadow.
Because until now no cycling squad, from remote times to the present, even going through the dark years of doping, has conquered the three big ones in the same year. And the Jumbo, who won the Giro with Roglic and the Tour with Vingegaard, has brought the two to the Vuelta to set up the marimonera, turn everything upside down, lower the smoke to the opponents and throw themselves from head to toe for the victory bringing apart from his two figures an extraordinary team in which the American stands out Sepp Kussa key player in the victories in Italy and France, and perhaps the best domestique in the world only with the permission of his partner Wout van Aertwho they have left at home because otherwise someone will not even pick up the number tomorrow.
🇪🇸 #LaVuelta23
TTT training 😄💨 pic.twitter.com/SUZIBYq3Jd
— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) August 24, 2023
“I feel pretty good, although I don’t know how I’ll be until the race starts.” who speaks is vingegaard and he doesn’t say that he’s going to go out, try it on and see what happens. No. He talks about how he is fine, that he has recovered after the victory in Paris and that – whether it’s true or not – he doesn’t care if it’s him or not. roglic the one who arrives in Madrid dressed in the leader’s red jersey. The truth, as evidenced yesterday by the testimony of their smiling faces, is that the atmosphere between the two is cordial, that there are no bad feelings between them and that, indeed, they are one for all and all for one.
pedaling together
“Whenever the two of us have shared the lead, it has turned out quite well. We have a strong team and we will see if in the end jonas or I myself are ahead”, word of roglic And little more to add. “My goal? To win the Vuelta as a team. We don’t run as adversaries, Roglic against Vingegaard, but we do it together and we are both leaders”, says Vingegaard, a rider of few words, like Roglic; The strength, both, is shown more by pedaling than speaking.
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They want, yes, to mark the territory from the initial time trial this Saturday, by teams and by Barcelona, where they are the favourites. Perhaps, Soudal de evenepoel It does not have the block power of the Jumbo and is based more on the genius and figure of the flamenco star who will make the winners of the Tour and Giro dizzy to the impossible. Just an afternoon of glory Filippo Ganna, in an Ineos strengthened in the art of the team time trial, could deprive the Dutch team of victory in the Catalan capital. A year ago, in Utrecht, the Jumbo already won a stage with similar characteristics. Last week they took a kind of test in the Vuelta a Burgos, although without so much opposition and very high-level opponents, and logically they won by the book.
Three wins in four years
“In my case, I had to be here because I had not gone to the Tour and the Tour is always exciting,” he says roglic. Since 2019 he has not lost the Spanish round, which he has won three times. Last year he fell in Seville, in a silly sprint, and had to retire when he was second overall. So Roglic is not kidding . And Vingegaard, less.