Jonas Vingegaard is surrounded by journalists in Singapore. He has a camera in front of him with a glaring white light shining perfectly into his vision. Everywhere he looks, there are dictaphones, iPhones and microphones thrown at him, recording every word, every slip up, every syllable. They all want Jonas. This is what comes with winning the Tour de France, and Vingegaard, who just over five years ago was working in a Danish fish factory, is coping remarkably well.
“What’s your new life like?” someone asks him.
Vingegaard’s answer is measured: “There’s a small difference. I’m getting recognised a bit more, but where I live at home, it’s basically the same. There, nothing has changed. I wouldn’t say [the extra attention] is difficult, but I’m not a guy that likes it. I take it as it is.”
As questions are thrown at him, the trend of Vingegaard’s serious and sensible answers continues. Will he ride the Giro, the Tour, the Vuelta, or both? “I have to talk about it with my team and see how the route compares to other races. My preference would be the Tour de France,” he says, deadpan. “Doing both, for now, would be too complicated. I have to choose one and in the future it can be that I go for both,” he continues, mature and measured.
Vingegaard celebrates with his wife and child after the final stage of the 2022 Tour de France (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix)
More questions are fired at Vingegaard, and each of them he answers carefully. For journalists, he doesn’t give much of a story, for Jumbo-Visma’s PR department, he’s a delight. “We’ll make a plan in December. It’s about what the team wants and what I want,” he says when probed about his calendar for the upcoming season.
While Vingegaard gave the straight answer that he hopes to ride the Tour de France again in 2023, there’s no denying that the newly-announced route doesn’t fully play to the Dane’s strengths. There’s only one time trial in the entire race which involves just 22 kilometres of undulating roads on stage 16.
“I would have liked a bit more [time-trialling]. When there’s a time trial towards the end it’s to my advantage, of course it would have been nice if there was a bit more, but I still think it’s a good course,” Vingegaard says, careful not to criticise any parties involved in the route planning. He’s speaking the ASO-run Tour de France Prudential Criterium, after all.
While unlikely, if there is one rider who…