Vingegaard reveals Pidcock’s mother inspired secret Vuelta ceremony
Jonas Vingegaard expected to celebrate his Vuelta victory in Madrid. Instead, the final stage was abandoned, the podium disappeared, and an improvised ceremony took its place. Days later, at Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s High Performance Center, after a low-key reception with staff, partners and sponsors, Vingegaard reflected on a race shaped by protests, an unusual celebration, and the solidarity it inspired.
“I think the idea came from Tom Pidcock’s mom,” Vingegaard said with a smile as he reflected on the improvised celebration. “And then they grabbed it and said, ‘Okay, then we arrange it.’ They were in different hotels, and then they all came to our hotel, like schoolboys. We had to keep it a bit of a secret, otherwise the protestors would come. And also Matthew [Riccitello from Israel-Premier Tech] had to get the white jersey, of course, so I guess we had to keep it a bit of a secret.”
He had been disappointed at first. “I was just very disappointed that we couldn’t go to Madrid and do the celebration there,” he admitted. “But actually it was a super nice way of celebrating it. It was way smaller and way more intimate in some kind of ways. So it was really a nice celebration. Actually it was a lot nicer than I thought it would be.”
The improvised ceremony came to symbolise something greater for him. “Because also it shows that in cycling we can actually stand together and get something like, ‘Okay, we want to do something together.’ And maybe not only there, but actually in the whole race with all these protests, for once as riders and teams we were standing more together, which we haven’t been able to do in recent years.”
That sense of unity was unusual. Normally, he explained, there are always voices pushing to continue even when conditions are unsafe. “If something would happen on the stages, we would say, ‘Okay, then we stop the stage and we try again tomorrow.’ And we were all on the same page, where normally there would always be somebody who wanted to finish the stage or try to go on. Here we just said, ‘Okay, we stop the race for today and then we try again tomorrow.’”
Rumours swirled during the Vuelta that teams had pushed for Israel-Premier Tech to be excluded. Vingegaard would not confirm them. “Of course I think there was a lot of talks also about what the organization and also what the UCI could do,” he said. “But whether there was many teams who wanted Israel to leave or not, I’m not 100% sure. Of course the organizers cannot probably do anything.”
He did acknowledge the strain on Israel-Premier Tech’s riders. “I spoke a bit with a few guys of them, and of course there’s a lot of pressure on them. I don’t think they found it a very nice situation because I think all of the protest was more against them. So whether they felt safe or not, I cannot answer. You have to ask those guys. But for sure, it’s not a nice situation for them to be in, so I really felt with them.”
The protests and neutralisations sharpened his awareness of how fragile the sport can be. “It is very fragile, as you say. It’s very easy to do a protest and stand on the road there. This is not the first time it has happened, though. But now it seemed like they realised, especially after the Bilbao stage, how vulnerable cycling is. They can really get into the media when they stop the race. I just hope the UCI or the organizers can do something about it, and that it won’t be a major problem in the future.”
Away from the protests, Vingegaard reflected on a different kind of challenge: the pressure he once struggled to manage. Asked about his composure throughout the 2025 season, when he seemed remarkably calm, he explained: “Yeah, I guess I just kind of realised that cycling is not everything. Even if I don’t win, the world is still turning and there’s still a day tomorrow. Before this, I thought about it too much. I got really nervous a lot, but then I just worked my way through it. Now I’m even more relaxed than I’ve ever been. Before the Bola del Mundo [the last uphill finish of the 2025 Vuelta] I realised if I do my best, I cannot do any more than that.”
That calm carried him through the tense final stage, when rivals tried to expose weakness. “Of course you wake up on the last day and you’re a bit nervous, but in a good way. I think if you’re not nervous, then you cannot perform. You just go on and do what you do all the other days and focus on the race.”
The Vuelta may be won, but ambition remains. “Of course there’s still the Tour de France. The Tour is the Tour. It’s a very special race. I still dream of winning the Tour again. I would be lying if I said otherwise. And all these one-week stage races on the WorldTour, like the ones I haven’t won yet, those are also races that I kind of dream of winning.”
His record in the one-day races still leaves him smiling. “I’ve only won one one-day race in my life. The Drone Classic. You cannot really call it a one-day race. I didn’t really figure out how to perform in them. Maybe I need to go out on a three-hour ride the day before and pretend it’s almost a race. I’ve never tried that, but at least then I could say I tried it.”
For now he will take his rest at home before considering what comes next. The future is still long, he said, and he will ride until the day he no longer wants to. Until then, he will chase more Tours, perhaps a Giro, and maybe even another Drone Classic.
