‘Nobody can see me now’ - Vingegaard jokes about Giro breakaway plan

Standing at the start with a nose strip across his face, the Visma | Lease a Bike leader was told he appeared to be going into “military mode”.

“Yeah, I’m trying to hide,” Vingegaard replied with a smile to Eurosport. “I want to be in the breakaway today, so I’ll try to sneak in and nobody can see me now.”

It was a rare light moment from the Dane, who has spent most of this Giro keeping his focus narrow and his answers measured. With another demanding day ahead, he was not willing to look too far beyond the stage in front of him, even with a major mountain test waiting on Saturday.

“At the moment I’m not thinking about tomorrow,” Vingegaard said. “I think today will be a pretty hard final. It can also turn out to be a pretty hard day in total, so first of all I have to focus on today, and then in the afternoon I’ll start focusing on tomorrow.”

The nose strip has become one of the more noticeable details around Visma in recent months. Victor Campenaerts helped popularise the habit inside the team last year, explaining that it fits into his belief in controlled nose breathing and small marginal gains. 

Campenaerts even joked that Vingegaard wanted him at the Vuelta to provide fresh strips every day.

The joke at the start came against a more serious backdrop. A day earlier, Vingegaard had confirmed to Eurosport that he had been among the riders affected by illness during the race, although he insisted the problem was already behind him.

“I had a little bit of it as well, but that was already before the rest day, so it is behind me now,” Vingegaard said after stage 12. “It is much better now than it was.”

Illness has been a recurring subject in the peloton since the Giro moved deeper into Italy, with cold and wet days leaving several riders coughing and sneezing. Vingegaard said it had been noticeable inside the bunch, but not enough to change Visma’s plans.

“There has been quite a bit in the peloton,” he said. “You can feel that many riders have had something, so it is definitely something you have to be careful with.”