Visma say criticism from Jonas Vingegaard's wife 'taken out of proportion'

Visma | Lease a Bike have played down talk of tensions between Jonas Vingegaard and his team in the wake of an interview the rider’s wife Trine Marie Hansen gave to Danish newspaper Politiken.

In the interview published on Sunday, Hansen outlined the sacrifices her family was required to make, highlighting the amount of time Vingegaard spent away from home on team training camps. “I'd say Visma is pushing him too far now. I'm afraid he's burning the candle at both ends,” she said.

The interview generated intense media commentary in Vingegaard’s native Denmark, but speaking after stage 2 of the Tour de France in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Visma | Lease a Bike directeur sportif Grischa Niermann suggested the comments had been blown out of proportion.

“You have to ask her, of course, but I think that’s maybe taken a little bit out of proportion,” Niermann said. “We have a very good working together with Jonas, but also with Trine.

“We always check all this stuff together. We discussed, for example, in the winter that Jonas would not go to altitude camp in February, and that he would stay with the family.”

Long stints at altitude have become more or less de rigueur for Tour de France contenders in the 2020s. Vingegaard, like his rival Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), spent much of May at altitude at Sierra Nevada, and both riders attended team training camps in the Alps between the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour. 

“Of course, the sacrifice is necessary, Jonas knows that more than anybody else,” Niermann said. “With the Tour preparation, he was away from home a lot, but that's also why he's in this shape now.

“For me, it’s some stuff taken out of proportion, and I'm not worried about that. We have very good cohesion with Jonas, but also his family. By preparing him how we prepared him, he is in that shape that he is now.”

Vingegaard also downplayed any idea of a clash with his team when he spoke to reporters after placing third on stage 3. 

“I haven’t actually read the article, I’ve just heard something about it, so I’m not 100% sure what it says,” Vingegaard said. “I don’t read the media while I'm cycling, so it’s difficult for me to answer that question.

“Of course, it’s a lot of training camps and altitude camps during the year, so of course it’s hard on family life, but I’m still riding and I haven’t had a burn-out yet.”