The big question before the start of the Tour de France was how good Jonas Vingegaard could be after his terrible crash, but the Dane was able to successfully defend himself after Tadej Pogacar’s attack on the San Luca climb.
“I think this was probably one of the stages I feared the most,” Vingegaard said. “We actually expected that I would lose time because of my preparation.
“Honestly speaking, I didn’t have good preparation for this race, I only had one-and-a-half months to train properly, so I can be super happy with how everything went today… especially how I was able to follow Tadej on the second climb.”
“Already before my crash it was a stage that suited him rather than me, and then especially after my crash I was even more behind,” he continued.
“He wanted me to pull on the kicker, but I waited otherwise he would have attacked me again. From the downhill I started working with him to try to gain time on the other competitors.”
“I can say now that if I’m not back, I’m super, super close to my normal level,” Vingegaard said. “I think this has gone way better than I ever expected. I am really satisfied as it’s been two hard days.”
