He is on another level, he is a stratospheric cyclist, and not because of the galactic time trial case that Visma, his team, has pulled off. Jonas Vingegaard is flying at the start of the season, he is being unstoppable in 2024. Who says now that he is the best rider only in July and in the Tour? The Dane is the world leader in victories at the start of the course. With six wins, no one has won more than him.
In ten days of competition he already has six victories, the same as his compatriot Mads Pedersen. The Dane from Lidl, a good sprinter and classicist, dominated the Star of Bessèges and the Tour de La Provence. While the double Tour champion already won in O Gran Camiño and this Sunday, if there are no unforeseen events, he will conquer the Tirreno-Adriatico.
The general will be his seventh notch of the course, the same ones he added in 2022, the year of his first Tour. Which speaks of the Dane's change of mentality to compete with Pogacar. In 2023 he scored 15 successes. In less than two months he has already amassed almost half of it.
Behind the two Scandinavians are two pure sprinters such as the Belgian Tim Merlier (Soudal) and the Dutch Kooij, also from Visma, with five and four victories, respectively, so far this year.
In the race of the two seas, Vingegaard has won the two queen stages, always on the attack and alone, in his new, relentless way. In case Juan Ayuso and Jai Hindley didn't have enough on Friday in San Giacomo, he attacked them again on Saturday on Monte Petrano. He showed them his number again, now with the blue leader's jersey, and picked them up again.
The Spaniard, 21 years old, six years younger than his rival, tried to weld himself to his wheel but could not last more than 100 meters. The watts and power of the Dane's attack ended up forcing him to give in with 6 km remaining. In the end, he lost another half a minute, adding to the 1m12s of the previous day. There is no doubt that Vingegaard is hungry. No Dane had won Poseidon's trident since Sorensen in 1992.
