'It wasn't a surprise' - Vingegaard's perfect start fuels Giro-Tour double hopes

After annexing Paris-Nice earlier in the month, claiming two stage wins along the way, Vingegaard repeated the dose at the Volta a Catalunya, cruising to victories at La Molina and Queralt, and doling out a heavy beating to some notable Grand Tour rivals along the way.

“It wasn’t a surprise to us, we knew he was good,” Visma Head of Racing Grischa Niermann told Domestique.

Even so, Vingegaard had to navigate some troubled waters this winter. His key domestique Simon Yates announced his surprise retirement in early January, while his long-time coach Tim Heeskerk abruptly departed the team shortly afterwards.

Vingegaard himself suffered a crash after an unwanted interaction with a fan during a training ride near Malaga, and a subsequent illness ruled him out of his planned seasonal debut at the UAE Tour.

Those misfortunes, some quite minor in isolation, all added to a prevailing narrative that suggested Vingegaard was dropping further and further off the pace set by his eternal rival Tadej Pogačar. But while Vingegaard was soundly beaten into second place by Pogačar for the second straight year at the Tour de France, he would go on to win the Vuelta a España in September.

And, lest we forget, there was some mitigation for his struggles against Pogačar these past two Julys. In 2024, the Tour was Vingegaard’s first race after a life-threatening crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April. In 2025, his spring was compromised by a concussion at Paris-Nice. The hope at Visma is that a clear run at the spring in 2026 will bear fruit in the summer, where Vingegaard is chasing the Giro-Tour double.

“Even for us, you cannot put that in numbers,” Niermann said of the impact Vingegaard’s 2024 crash has had on his trajectory ever since. 

“But of course it helps Jonas to have a full season in his legs. And also, Jonas was second in the Tour last year and he won the Vuelta. People can say he had a bad year, but I would see it differently…”

Vingegaard’s duel with Pogačar has defined his career, with the pair occupying the top two places at the past five editions of the Tour de France. The Slovenian now leads that series 3-2, but Vingegaard was full value for his victories in 2022 and 2023. 

As ever in a rivalry of this nature, praise for one athlete often comes laced with tacit criticism of the other. Messi and Ronaldo know the plight, as do Federer and Nadal. Pogačar’s versatile gifts and his hunger to chase success in one-day races in spring and autumn has led many to conclude that Vingegaard, a stage race specialist, has eyes only for July.

That is not quite true. Injury allowing, Vingegaard tends to race – and win – across the calendar. This is the fourth year in a row that Vingegaard has won his first race of the year, and early-season flexes like this are nothing new. Witness, for instance, his displays at O Gran Camiño in years past.

But the notion that Vingegaard ‘gives’ less of himself across the year than Pogačar has hardened into a consensus, even though the Slovenian has so far amassed just two (admittedly high-octane) race days in 2026. 

“We try to shrug it off and we also mostly do so, because what counts for us is what we talk about behind closed doors, and how we see things, how we want to do a build-up to a year and how we do our tactics,” Niermann said. 

“But, of course, everybody reads and hears somehow about the criticism. You cannot say it doesn’t affect us, but we still don’t let it dictate our decisions. We make decisions based on what we know and the data that we have and so on. We don’t let it be based on what other people say about us.”

Although Vingegaard beat Florian Lipowitz, Remco Evenepoel and chief Giro rival João Almeida very soundly at the Volta a Catalunya, he knows that he is measured against a different standard to everybody else. 

A retooled Pogačar hit new heights in 2024 and 2025, and his astounding victories at Strade Bianche and Milan-Sanremo indicate that he will climb still higher this season. The onus will be on Vingegaard to follow him into that rarefied atmosphere. Crushing wins at Paris-Nice and Catalunya are still no guarantee that Vingegaard will be able to lay a glove on Pogačar in July.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme was in Barcelona for the finale of the Volta a Catalunya, and he made a beeline for Vingegaard by the podium on Sunday. “See you in July,” he said.

But before returning to Montjuïc for the Grand Départ on July 4, Vingegaard will make his Giro d’Italia debut in May. On past pedigree and current form, Vingegaard will line up in Italy as the overwhelming favourite to complete a full set of Grand Tour victories. He would become only the eighth man in history to do so, and he would also beat Pogačar to the landmark.

Vingegaard will prepare for the Giro in his own, low-key way. The Volta a Catalunya was his last race before the Grande Partenza in six weeks’ time. While Pogačar chases Monuments in April, Vingegaard will be scaling mountains in solitude, reassured by his blast of March racing.

“He will be at altitude and then also spend some time at home,” Niermann said. “And then he’ll be ready for the Giro.”