Volta a Catalunya winner Jonas Vingegaard has spent two years fighting to regain his pre-crash form – and now might be even better than before. That is the view of Danish former pro and cycling pundit Nicki Sørensen, who was speaking after the Vingegaard‘s impressive ride to GC victory in the Spanish stage race last week.
Vingegaard echoed Sørensen’s sentiments when they were put to him, saying he felt as though he’d spent two years fighting – without necessarily even knowing it.
“I feel like I’ve spent the last two years fighting my way back to that level – and in some way the Jonas I was before my crash,” he told Danish outlet TV2. “I feel, without consciously knowing it, that it has had a greater influence than I thought.”
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The double Tour de France winner was involved in a brutal pile-up in the 2024 edition of Itzulia Basque Country. He suffered a punctured lung and broke a collarbone and several ribs. So bad were his injuries that the Dane said afterwards that he thought he was going to die. Incredibly, he managed to return to the Tour de France that year and finish second, but now both Vingegaard and Sørensen are convinced the effects were more lasting than they’d initially supposed.
“After the crash [he] had in the Basque Country… I don’t think we saw the same Vingegaard until last year,” said TV2 expert Sørensen, a former pro with CSC-Tiscali, among others. “He was missing something, and I don’t know what it was. But it wasn’t a Vingegaard at the same level as before the crash. But now he’s maybe back there – or even better.
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