Jonas Vingegaard will ride into Madrid on Sunday evening set to celebrate becoming Denmark's first-ever winner of the Vuelta a España, victory in the third Spanish Grand Tour of his career, and likely refreshed to fight for more such challenges in the future.
The Dane's two Tour de France wins in 2022 and 2023, not to mention his second place in the Vuelta a España, have been followed by two successive, categorical defeats in July by Tadej Pogačar.
But the Vuelta a España has ended exactly as Vingegaard would have liked when he came into the race as top favourite, with an impressive defeat of his rivals on the last summit finish of La Bola del Mundo and the red jersey securely in his possession.
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Victorious on stage 2 of the Vuelta and again on stage 9 when he surprised João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at the end of the first week, Vingegaard looked destined to cruise to a straightforward triumph.
However, things went awry both for Vingegaard and the Vuelta in general in the second week, as pro-Palestinian protests severely disrupted multiple stages and the Dane fell ill, too. An unexpected defeat by Almeida on the summit of the Angliru made it look even tougher for him to come through to the finale.
But as Almeida, also ill, faded in the third week, Vingegaard regained some much-needed momentum and his final victory on the Bola de Mundo showed he was ending the race on a high note. The last stage into Madrid still remains to be tackled.
There may well yet be last-minute disruption of the kind that came within a whisker of causing stage 20 to be aborted when protestors invaded again, but whatever happens, Vingegaard can nonetheless feel fully justified in having a sense of 'mission accomplished'.
"It's one of the biggest races in the world, something I've always dreamed of winning, so to be able to do that and take the win is a dream come true for me," VIngegaard said on Saturday evening in his final full press conference of the race and prior to Sunday's largely ceremonial, and hopefully uneventful, stage.
"Of course, there is still tomorrow [Sunday]. But to win the stage today, on such a special mountain, that was incredible, too."
Having racked up his third stage win in the Vuelta, and being on the point of taking Visma's fifth Vuelta victory in seven years, Vingegaard said that he had been in good shape throughout the race, but that he had suffered from sickness over the last two weeks.
"Obviously, it's not something you want to say out loud, but at that moment, it doesn't help you to be at your best," he explained.
Another stressful element has been handling the constant series of pro-Palestine protests, one of which came close to completely blocking the Vuelta's key final mountain stage when demonstrators broke onto the road with 20 kilometres to go.
However, Vingegaard both defended people's rights to demonstrate and said that while it was a shame the protests had to happen at the Vuelta "but as I said, people are allowed to do them, and I also understand why they do it".
"I think after that second rest day everybody was not so sure if the race would continue and luckily the police did a great job to make us able to race."
As for how it actually affected the race, Vingegaard agreed that he could have lost some more time had the Valladolid time trial, shortened for security reasons, been held at its full distance. But he also pointed out that on the Bilbao stage, partly suspended, he was ahead when the race was partly cancelled, and he could have taken more time there.
Regarding stage 20's disruption at the foot of the Bola del Mundo, he said "Today was a bit of a close call, it was pretty close, but luckily we could just go around it, and the police and organisers again did a super good job to keep us safe, and make us able to keep riding. Of course we had to do a small detour, but I still felt safe."
The future and the Giro d'Italia?
As important as success in the Vuelta has been for Vingegaard, rather than being the breakthrough race of his career or the final touch prior to retirement, it represents something rather different - a valuable triumph to add to his palmares, but one which leads to other opportunities.
Vingegaard's immediate goal is the European Championships, his last race of the season, and he said he hasn't had time to reflect on what he might have learned for future reference in Grand Tours.
But even so, the next opportunities await, and VIngegaard said he is keen to get to grips with a possible appearance at the Giro d'Italia, the only Grand Tour he hasn't won, next year.
"For sure it's a really important victory, it's one of the three Grand Tours so to do that is something incredible. I've won two Tours and now here, it's special.
"It's probably bigger [in sporting terms] than coming second in the Tour last year, but after everything that happened, I think coming second last year is still my biggest achievement after my [2024 Itzulia Basque Country] crash."
Vingegaard fought back from that life-threatening accident in 2024 to finish as a runner-up to Pogačar in July in the Tour de France, of course, and beating the Slovenian in cycling's biggest bike race likely remains an overiding goal. But he hasn't ruled out having a crack at the Giro d'Italia.
"Obviously, it's something I'd like to do, but it depends on what the program will be. But the Tour is the Tour and probably I'll have to do the Tour again."
For now, in any case, Vingegaard has conquered the Vuelta, and apart from becoming the first Dane to do so, he's also been able to go one better than his second place behind teammate Sepp Kuss in 2023.
"Of course, when you haven't won a Grand Tour you want to try and win it, and that's also why I came back. Now I have three stage wins and I'll be going into Madrid in the red jersey, too."
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