Jonas Vingegaard has suggested he was in the form of his life when he won the 2022 Tour de France but acknowledged that victory in cycling’s biggest race also depends on surviving and avoiding crashes and injury.
The 25-year-old Dane was riding only his second Tour but thanks to excellent team support from Jumbo-Visma he was able to make it through the dangers of the first week, cracked Tadej Pogačar on the finish atop the Col du Granon and then defended the yellow jersey all the way to Paris.
“I think we prepared really well and I was in the best form I’ve ever been in. I was thinking that I had a really good shot at winning the Tour de France this year. Of course, anything can happen, it's the Tour de France, you can crash, you can lose time,” Vingegaard told Flobikes while in Japan for the Saitama Tour de France criterium.
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Vingegaard survived what could have been a nasty crash on 15, almost crashed and then sportingly waited for Pogacar when he went off the road during stage 18, and then only just avoided going off-road during the final time trial.
He won the Tour by 2:43, the victory changing his life, but admitted the three-week race could have gone very differently.
“The Tour de France is hard, anything can happen,” he said.
“If you’re lucky if you get through it without crashing. I’ve done it twice and I think I've crashed three or four times. You’ll go down at one point and it's about how you get back up.”
Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma dominated the 2022 race. The team won six stages, with Wout van Aert taking three as he dominated the green jersey and helped Vingegaard on every terrain. Christophe Laporte also won a stage, while Vingegaard won on the Col du Granon and then to Hautacam while wearing the yellow jersey.
Teammate and co-leader Primož Roglič was not so lucky. He crashed on the Paris-Roubaix stage and eventually abandoned the Tour before stage 15 due to his injuries, with Steven Kruijswijk also crashing out on the same day.
In contrast, Vingegaard avoided losing time on the cobbles despite his comical multiple bike swap after a mechanical problem. The cycling Gods seemed to look after him on stage 18 too when he dropped his chain on the last descent of the Col de Spandelles.
“That was the scariest moment; when I almost crashed on a descent,” he recalled.
Yet there were also moments that indicated Vingegaard could win the Tour before he cracked Pogačar on the Granon.
“I think the first one was La Planches des Belle Filles. I thought it was more suitable for Tadej but I also had the feeling that he wasn’t stronger than I was that day. So I gained a lot of confidence for the longer climbs,” Vingegaard suggested.
Winning the Tour de France made Vingegaard a national hero at home in Denmark after the race started in the capital Copenhagen but he retreated back into his family life in northern Denmark, only returning for a short block of end-of-season racing.
Vingegaard’s wife and daughter travelled to Singapore and Saitama with him as they ended his off-season holidays. He will soon start to prepare for 2023.
Jumbo-Visma has yet to confirm their race leaders for 2023 but he is hoping to return to the Tour de France even if he would have preferred more time trials in the mountainous route.
“We haven’t talked in detail with the team and we haven’t made a final plan for 2023 but the idea is to go back to the Tour de France. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the plan,” Vingegaard told Cyclingnews recently.
“Being the defending Tour winner is always hard but I’m up for the challenge. I know it’ll be harder and harder to win it but that’s part of the challenge and now I have the experience of winning on my side. I know I just have to focus on myself, to be the best I can at the 2023 Tour de France.”
