'I went down pretty hard' - Vingegaard shakes off crash to shine at Vuelta

Jonas Vingegaard has cemented his status as the favourite for the Vuelta a España after he sprinted into the red jersey with victory at Limone Piemonte on stage 2.

The Dane’s victory was all the more striking given that he had come down in a mass crash with a shade over 25km of the stage remaining. Vingegaard and three of his Visma | Lease a Bike teammates were among the fallers on a rain-soaked roundabout, but he quickly rejoined the fray.

Despite being forced to race the remainder of the stage on a replacement bike, Vingegaard had the power and the poise to win the reduced sprint at the top of the category 2 haul to Limone Piemonte, overhauling an impressive Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) at the mist-shrouded summit.

Vingegaard sustained a cut to his left elbow in the crash, but he downplayed the severity of his injuries at the finish.

“I went down pretty hard, but it seems like I didn’t hurt myself too bad,” Vingegaard said. “I have a bit of bruises. But I think because it was so slippery I was sliding more so I didn’t get any bad road rash or anything.”

Vingegaard’s stage win puts him into the maillot rojo of race leader, and he also gained time on his GC rivals thanks to the winner’s time bonus and a two-second gap between the first four and the rest.

In the overall standings, Vingegaard is thus four seconds clear of Ciccone, ten seconds up on Egan Bernal (Ineos) and 12 ahead of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG pairing of João Almeida and Juan Ayuso.

“To be honest, you’re not going to let a stage win pass,” Vingegaard said. “When I saw the opportunity, I said of course I’ll take it also. I m super happy to take the victory today. It’s been a while since my last victory. I’m super happy with how I felt and how the team did today. And I’m super happy with having the red jersey.”

The victory was only the third of the season for Vingegaard following his stage win and overall triumph at the Volta ao Algarve in February. His Spring was interrupted by a crash at Paris-Nice, and he had to settle for second behind Tadej Pogacar at both the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de France.

Vingegaard will hope to carry the red jersey to Madrid in three weeks’ time, but long-term thinking didn’t prevent him from chasing stage victory here, and he produced a remarkable turn of speed to overhaul the on-form Ciccone in the finishing straight.

“I just went on his wheel,” Vingegaard said “To be honest, before the last corner I didn’t think that it would be possible to pass him. But from the corner, it was a bit longer to the finish than I thought, so I could luckily just pass him.”