Magnus Cort believes Uno-X could offer Vingegaard 'fresh air and a new start'

Magnus Cort believes Uno-X could offer Jonas Vingegaard “fresh air and a new start” should his compatriot ever decide to leave Visma | Lease a Bike.

The possibility of Vingegaard one day joining the Scandinavian team is not a new talking point. Back in March, Cort revealed that the Grand Tour winner had previously told him that if he were ever to leave Visma, Uno-X would be the team he would consider.

“He always says that if he were ever to leave Visma, it would be for Uno-X,” Cort told Viaplay at the time, while stressing that such a move remained unlikely.

Much has happened since then.

Vingegaard moved to cool transfer speculation in May, saying he did not expect to change teams before the end of his career.

However, the 29-year-old also revealed during the Tour de France that he had seriously considered walking away from professional cycling in 2025 if the demands being placed upon him did not change.

“I said last year that if this was how it was going to be, I couldn’t be in it anymore,” Vingegaard explained, with Visma subsequently giving him greater input into his race programme and training camp schedule.

The Dutch team later confirmed that Vingegaard’s concerns around balancing family life with the demands of competing at the top of the sport had been part of an ongoing conversation, with further discussions planned around his programme for 2027.

Against that backdrop, Cort was once again asked about the prospect of Vingegaard eventually landing at Uno-X during his appearance on the Domestique Hotseat.

“I think it's not impossible,” Cort said. “Uno-X is a team that's growing now, so they also have to look at the big riders.

“If he is one of them, it does obviously require some budget increase, but hopefully the team, or the guys behind the team, are ready for that. It could be very, very interesting, I think, to have him on Uno-X.”

For Cort, the attraction of Uno-X is not necessarily about escaping the pressure that comes with being one of the biggest riders in the sport.

Instead, he believes the team could offer certain riders a chance to change their environment and reconsider what they want from the latter stages of their careers.

“I do think that can be, maybe not all riders are searching for that, but for some riders at a certain point in their career it could be something that they want to do and try,” Cort explained.

“You're never going to get away from the pressure. Even if you're kind of going to a little bit smaller team, then you're just being the biggest guy by far, so you'll still be the centre of attention."

“But if you start somewhere fresh, that's the time maybe you can redraw who you are and what you want to do as a rider. If he has been, I don't know, chasing the Tour too much or fighting with Tadej, trying some new stuff out."

“I don't know what the team wants or what Jonas wants, but it is a possibility that he could get some fresh air and a new start.”

Cort is particularly well placed to explain what a change of environment at Uno-X can provide.

The 33-year-old joined the team in 2024 after spells with Orica GreenEDGE, Astana and EF Education-EasyPost, and will bring his professional career to an end after three seasons in the Norwegian setup. He confirmed his retirement in June, saying he still felt capable of riding at 100 percent but was ready to move on from the sacrifices required to remain at the highest level.

For Cort, one of the defining qualities at Uno-X is the closeness between its Danish and Norwegian riders.

The similarities between the two languages allow riders to communicate in their native tongue, while the stability of the roster has helped create an environment that Cort feels is unusual at WorldTour level.

“There are no barriers, no groups inside the team,” he explained. “There's no Italian sitting speaking Italian, Spanish, or it could be like a Danish group and English group or something. Everybody always knows what's going on.

“I think it is easier to give that last two percent maybe when you're doing it for a friend rather than maybe just a teammate.”

That close team culture has not come at the expense of performance, according to Cort.

He believes Uno-X has managed to strike a balance between a highly professional performance setup and an understanding that the relentless pursuit of marginal gains can come at the cost of a rider's motivation.

“They have been really good at developing their own riders within the team,” Cort said. “It is a team that's taking the performance side very serious.”

Cort added that the challenge is to preserve the “human” side of the sport, arguing that it can become easy to “kill the motivation” when every aspect of a rider's life is measured.

It is a balance that could, at least in theory, align closely with what Vingegaard may be looking for at this stage of his career, particularly in light of his previous comments about the demands of life as a Grand Tour contender and the importance of finding a better balance between cycling and family life.

Whether Vingegaard will ever seek such a change of environment remains another matter. He has publicly indicated that he expects to remain with Visma, while Cort was careful to stress that he has no knowledge of what either Vingegaard or Uno-X might want in the future.

But after three seasons inside the Scandinavian team, Cort has little doubt about what Uno-X can offer.

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