A question mark may remain over Jonas Vingegaard’s race calendar for the rest of the season but there is one event the Tour de France winner has been confirmed for, and that is the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium at the end of October.
The Jumbo-Visma rider hasn’t raced since that final stage of the finishing on the Champs-Élysées, missing the Tour of Denmark and turning down a spot in the Danish team for the Wollongong Road World Championships in September. The 25-year-old’s planned return race is as yet unknown, but it was announced Wednesday that he will be part of a 32 rider line up, that also includes Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), at the Singapore criterium on October 30.
While a street circuit in the heart of Singapore may not exactly be the terrain that plays to Vingegaard’s strengths, the yellow jersey he claimed as the Tour de France victor makes him a crucial ingredient at the exhibition event.
Similar Tour de France associated exhibition events, drawing the big names of the three week French Grand Tour to locations well away from its home base, have been held in the past from Saitama Criterium in Japan to the Shanghai Criterium in China, but this event is a first for Singapore.
“The Tour de France Criterium is a cycling performance, showcasing the speed and intensity of cycling through a race on an inner-city circuit," Tour de France Director Christian Prudhomme said when the event was announced earlier this year. "The Criterium format allows us to bring an adaptation of the Tour to more places, while still retaining the essence and spirit of the Tour De France with top riders in the heart of the city.
“With the Tour de France Criterium, cycling becomes a cultural bridge, celebrating the Tour de France atmosphere in territories the race has not yet explored.”
Alongside the professional WorldTour riders like yellow jersey winner Vingegaard and Cavendish, who has 34 Tour de France stage wins across his career, there will be a Singapore Cycling Federation team.
“It’s an honour to race among the world’s best,” Singaporean team member Yeo Boon Kiak said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to seeing how our race strategy and familiarity with the street circuit measures up against the skills of the best cyclists in the world – we’re sure it will be an amazing experience.”
Last year a Giro d’Italia criterium was also run in Dubai on November 6, with a 30-lap short format race headlined by 2021 victor Egan Bernal as well as the 2021 winner and points classification winner Peter Sagan.
