Will Vingegaard's Giro dream clash with reality of Tour de France duty?

Rumours linking Jonas Vingegaard with a possible Giro d’Italia debut are nothing new, especially at this time of the year, when bike races give way to informed conjecture and/or idle speculation in the news cycle. Exactly twelve months ago, after all, there were persistent murmurs about his interest in riding the Giro, but the idea would lose momentum even before the route was belatedly announced in January.

The difference this time around is that Vingegaard seems to be actively talking up his desire to ride the Giro rather than carefully downplaying the idea. Last year’s cautious and polite “maybe I will” has amplified into something more categorical.

“Win the three Grand Tours or the Tour de France in 2026? I think I’d prefer to win the three Grand Tours…” Vingegaard told La Dernière Heure during his end-of-season jaunt to the Saitama Criterium over the weekend. “And after the Tour de France and the Vuelta, I only have the Giro left…”

Although Vingegaard then dutifully reiterated that the Tour remains the biggest show in town and that he won’t skip it so long as he still believes he can win it, this nonetheless amounted to his firmest commitment yet to the idea of riding the 2026 Giro.

When he was quizzed about the Giro atop Bola del Mundo after sealing the Vuelta a España back in September, Vingegaard was woollier about the notion. Or, perhaps more accurately, he simply wasn’t in the headspace to contemplate winning another Grand Tour when he hadn’t quite finished winning that one.

By the time Vingegaard lined up for the European Championships three weeks later, he had begun to warm to the idea, even if he was still adamant that the Tour remained the sine qua non of his 2026 season. “The Tour is so important that it will certainly form part of my calendar, but let’s see if the Giro can be included,” he said. “It would be fantastic.”

In Saitama, Vingegaard made it explicitly clear that he wants to ride the Giro in 2026. That declaration will please RCS Sport, but they know well that it still doesn’t guarantee that Vingegaard will be on the start line in Bulgaria – most likely in the Black Sea city of Burgas – on May 9. 

The decision isn’t entirely Vingegaard’s to make, for one thing. His Visma | Lease a Bike squad will have to weigh up several factors before sanctioning such a radical deviation from his usual programme.

Speaking to Domestique last month, Visma sports director Grischa Niermann played a straight bat on the Giro question. “It is certainly on his list that he would really like to win all three Grand Tours in his career, so it will happen somewhere – but I cannot guarantee you if it happens next year,” he said.

Although Niermann quipped that nobody at Visma, not even Vingegaard himself, was certain of a place in the Tour squad, it’s obvious that the Dane will line up for the Grand Départ in Barcelona on July 4 as team leader. Although Visma have Grand Tour winners Simon Yates and Sepp Kuss on their roster, neither man is a viable option to challenge defending champion Tadej Pogačar.

Vingegaard and Visma will thus have to decide whether lining up at the Giro in May is truly compatible with a serious tilt at the Tour in July, which has been a fixed point on his schedule since 2021. 

Pogačar, ironically, is at the heart of compelling arguments for and against riding the Giro. In 2024, the Slovenian became the first man since the late Marco Pantani in 1998 to win the Giro-Tour double, proving that it can still be done even in this hyper-calibrated era of cycling. 

But if that example encourages Vingegaard, then Pogačar himself serves as the obvious deterrent. At the 2024 and 2025 Tours, Pogačar delivered crushing beatings to Vingegaard. Could he really expect to fare any better with the exertions of the Giro in his legs?

Then again, Vingegaard and Visma might feel that this iteration of Pogačar is more or less unbeatable at the Tour, save for accident or injury. Victory at the Giro would see Vingegaard complete a full set of Grand Tours, and it would give him something very tangible to take from his season regardless of what happens in July. 

They might also reckon that, even allowing for the residual fatigue of the Giro, Vingegaard would still have the wherewithal to fend off Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz et al for the second step of the Tour podium behind a theoretically unassailable Pogačar.

On the other hand, Vingegaard also suggested in Saitama that he had only recently returned to the level he had reached prior to his career-threatening crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April 2024. If Visma genuinely believe Vingegaard raced in a diminished state against Pogačar these past two Julys, then they might push him to go all-in against his old rival at the 2026 Tour rather than getting side-tracked by the Giro.

And, as BiciPro's Enzo Vicennati has pointed out, Tim Wellens’ recent claim that Pogačar had been nursing a knee injury at this year’s Tour was a reminder to Vingegaard that, even in his imperial phase, his old rival is still vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fortune and form that can affect any Grand Tour contender. 

Vingegaard needs to be ready to pounce on any potential Pogačar slip-up at the Tour, in other words. That thought might persuade Visma to stick to the same old script and have Vingegaard zero in squarely on the Tour rather than have his focus blurred by a Giro debut.

The other complicating factor is that the Giro route has not yet been announced. Rumours about the course have been percolating and one imagines RCS Sport will soon furnish Visma and other teams with the broad brushstrokes of their design, but they will need the full details before they can make a firm decision. 

The Giro route was initially due to be presented in mid-November, but as things stand, it won’t be confirmed until December 1 at the earliest. The longer things drag on, the less likely a Vingegaard Giro debut becomes. 

It will be fascinating to see if RCS Sport design a route expressly to tempt riders – and Vingegaard, in particular – into a tilt at the Giro-Tour double. In 2024, for instance, they facilitated Pogačar’s quest by reducing the total climbing by more than 15% on the previous year. They might also, however, look to tempt Remco Evenepoel into riding by offering rather more individual time trialling than the Tour’s paltry 26km. 

Pogačar, by contrast, seems unlikely to ride the Giro regardless of the route given his avowed desire to return to Paris-Roubaix and the certainty that he will return to seek a record-equalling fifth Tour victory, whether he wants to or not. 

Vingegaard has no Classics ambitions, of course, which theoretically facilitates his path to riding the Giro and the Tour. But the Tour has been Vingegaard’s centre of gravity since his debut in 2021, and he has placed in the top two in all five appearances, winning the race in 2022 and 2023. 

It might be Vingegaard’s dream to add the Giro to his palmarès, but the reality is that the Tour remains his primary duty. At Visma, all roads still lead to Paris. It’s not yet clear if they will allow Vingegaard take a detour to Rome.