Vuelta a Espana will reunite the most recent winners of the last 3 grand tours: Remco Evenepoel, Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard.
After a day full of honors and ceremonies at Jumbo-Visma sponsors, Vingegaard talked with the press and said that he looks ahead to the Vuelta.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” says Vingegaard when the name Evenepoel is mentioned. “I hope we can fight a good battle. Remco is one of the best cyclists in the world, so he is certainly one of our biggest opponents in the Vuelta. He won the world title for a reason and he is the man we should focus on.”
After his abandon in the Giro d’Italia, Evenepoel was able to fully prepare for the fall, with the World Championships in his mind first and then the Vuelta. Other competitors such as Joao Almeida, Enric Mas, Juan Ayuso, Richard Carapaz, Geraint Thomas and Aleksandr Vlasov have also been able to prepare longer for the Vuelta, unlike Vingegaard, who has to switch immediately after three intense Tour weeks.
“That doesn’t stress me. I’m going to the Vuelta and I’m going to do my best there,” he looks at it coolly. “If I win, I will of course be very happy. But if I don’t win, I can’t change it. Then I am also very happy if Primoz wins, for example.”
The fact that Vingegaard shares the leadership with Roglic again reminds him of the successful 2022 Tour de France.
“That worked well, the strategy with two leaders, and I’m looking forward to that again,” he says.
“At the beginning of the year we made the choice to ride the Vuelta this year, so it was always part of the plan. But we wanted to focus 100% on the Tour de France, so we really came up with a big plan for the Tour. We followed that completely”, he looks back.
Now the focus can be on the Vuelta, but that plan is still a bit unclear. At least for Vingegaard.
“There must be a plan, but I still have to talk to the team about it. That happens when I’m rested and ready. You have to be there from the start, that’s for sure. Because if you are not, you will already lose time in the stage to Andorra (in stage 3).”
