Is Vingegaard vulnerable or just racing against himself as Giro reaches the Alps?

Jonas Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike don’t tend to give too much away if they can help it, as Bjarne Riis reminded us again this week. Manager Richard Plugge certainly didn’t appreciate that unsolicited media consultation from Herning, but it made Vingegaard’s admission that he had been suffering from illness in recent days all the more striking.

Carefully hiding ailments and injuries from the public domain has long been a part of a Grand Tour champion’s armoury. Miguel Induráin was laid low by a tooth abscess in the final week of the 1993 Tour de France, but his Banesto team treated that information with the same care as the third secret of Fatima until Tony Rominger’s late charge had been warded off and Miguelón’s third yellow jersey had been won.

Then again, Induráin didn’t race in an era when a member of a rival team’s management could broadcast idle speculation about his health in quite the same way. Who knows, Manolo Saiz might have been a dangerous man with a podcast. But once Ineos’ Geraint Thomas put the question out there, Vingegaard was always going to struggle to dodge it, and he confirmed on Thursday that he had indeed been affected by a cold ahead of the Giro’s first rest day.

He wasn’t the only one, of course. The weather and pollen count in Italy at this time of the year mean that much of the Giro gruppo winds up coughing like hags at some point across the three weeks. 

“I actually don’t think it’s possible to do the Giro and not be sick at some point,” Ben O’Connor told us in Imperia the other day, cheerily revealing that he, too, had been a touch under the weather when he faced into the climb to Corno alle Scale last Sunday. 

Even so, not all colds create quite the same reaction. Vingegaard entered this Giro as the resounding favourite and he underscored that status by winning the first two summit finishes at the Blockhaus and Corno alle Scale, seemingly already putting the race beyond the imagination of his nominal rivals.

But when a seemingly unbeatable rider unexpectedly betrays a hint of weakness, it can suddenly alter the entire dynamic of a bike race. The journalist Gay Talese’s profile of Frank Sinatra’s sway over the entire music business in the 1960s springs to mind: “A Sinatra with a cold can, in a small way, send vibrations through the entertainment industry and beyond as surely as a President of the United States, suddenly sick, can shake the national economy.”

Visma maintain, however, that the would-be crisis has already been and gone. Vingegaard was already carrying the effects of the cold when he won at Corno alle Scale, after all, and he insists that he has already recovered.

“For sure it’s not a big worry,” Visma sports director Marc Reef told Domestique in Alessandria on Friday. “And the situation was never a really big concern. He said it was just before the rest day that it was a bit of an issue, but the rest day helped to get it out a bit. Over the last days, it only got better and I think we’re good to go again.”

Reef was reluctant to speculate how much, if at all, the cold had affected Vingegaard in Tuesday’s flat and fast time trial to Massa, where he was surprisingly subdued in finishing fully three minutes down on winner Filippo Ganna. “It’s always difficult to say how much that influenced things, and we also don’t know how the competition is at this moment,” Reef said. “Everybody is a bit vulnerable to picking something up at the Giro.”

Almost two weeks into the Giro, Vingegaard’s would-be rivals have given no indication that they believe him to be remotely vulnerable in this race. That was especially evident on the three stages that followed the Massa time trial, which all featured punchy climbs in the finale, precisely the kind of terrain where an ambitious challenger could try to lay a glove on the favourite and see how he reacted.

Instead, the three stages came and went with scarcely a frisson in the GC group. The days were attritional, of course, due to the heat and the topography, but nobody sought to test the state of Vingegaard’s health on the road to Chiavari, Novi Ligure or Verbania.

Netcompany-Ineos’ apparent flex in the finale of stage 11 was merely a precaution to avoid losing ground rather than an attempt to make gains. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, meanwhile, were happy simply to maintain the status quo as their leaders Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley nursed themselves through their own illnesses.

As the Giro wound northwards from Tuscany and into Piedmont, it became increasingly clear that all the GC contenders at this Giro were content to play a waiting game until they reached the high mountains again on stage 14 to Pila, which didn’t displease Visma. “We didn’t have to do too much, and we got through the stages on a good way,” said Reef.

It’s hard to shake that sense that the men behind Vingegaard believe he can only be beaten by circumstance at this Giro, and Saturday’s arduous day in the Valle d’Aosta will reveal altogether more in that regard.

Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) has been hugely impressive in limiting his losses to Vingegaard on the first two mountaintop finishes, and he even dared to attack him at Corno alle Scale, but the Austrian won’t be getting ahead of himself just yet.

A glance at the estimated power-to-weight ratio suggested that Vingegaard, whether by circumstance or design, was not exactly at his best on the summit finishes to date, but it was still enough for him to gain significant ground on his rivals and move to within touching distance of Eulálio Afonso’s pink jersey.

Mathys Rondel (Tudor), who is enjoying a most assured Grand Tour debut, is among those who reckon the race is already for the podium rather than for overall victory. “I think there are plenty who would be happy to be on the podium,” Rondel told Domestique. “For the victory, there’s Vingegaard, even if I don’t think he’s at the top, top level, he’ll be at the Tour de France.” 

Perhaps not, but it’s been enough so far. Vingegaard reaches the Alps in second place overall, 33 seconds down on Afonso and already 1:30 clear of Thymen Arensman (Ineos) and 1:57 up on Gall. 

The expectation is that Vingegaard will move into pink at Pila on Saturday and also put more ground into the chasing back, even if Reef pushed back against the theory that they’re already racing for second place. “I don’t think that is the case yet, I think everyone is still willing,” he said.

But more than anything, Vingegaard might be racing for reassurance when he takes on the five climbs that punctuate Saturday’s short but demanding stage. He has shown Giro-winning condition to this point, but he hasn’t yet hinted at Tadej Pogacar-slaying form. He might find himself trying to lift himself closer to the standards of that invisible rival in the days ahead, starting at Pila.

“We want to create a better situation for ourselves,” Reef said of Saturday’s stage. “And if we can do that, then we will do that.”