Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is eyeing the best opportunity yet to really live up to his status as the heavy pre-face favourite at the Giro d’Italia, with the first ‘real mountaintop finish’ of the 2026 Giro arriving on Friday’s seventh stage to Blockhaus.
Across six hectic stages, the Dane has so far only launched one attack, on stage 2 in Bulgaria, but that came to nothing as the leading group of three he formed on the road to Veliko Tarnovo was brought back in sight of the line.
While snatching the pink jersey this early looks unlikely, thanks to Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) building a 6:22 lead from the breakaway on stage 5, Visma will be massive favourites to take control of the race and move into a commanding position with Vingegaard over their main rivals.
“No, for sure, now [Eulálio] is in the jersey with more than six minutes, so it’s a good gap he has,” said Vingegaard before stage 6 in Paestum.
Vingegaard is no stranger to making a statement on early mountain stages in previous Grand Tours, taking more than a minute on Tadej Pogačar at the 2023 Tour de France on just the fifth stage, and attacking away from the entire field of last year’s Vuelta to win stage 9 to Valdezcaray.
Make a difference on Blockhaus
“It’s very important, because it’s a mountain finish – the first real mountaintop…
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