Jonas Vingegaard has finished his off-season and his preparation for the new season has slowly but surely begun. During a press event in Denmark, the leader of Visma | Lease a Bike looked back one last time on his disappointing participation in the European Championships, where he failed to reach the finish. "I'm actually quite glad that I started," he said.
Vingegaard and one-day races have yet to prove a perfect match. After the Vuelta, the Dane indicated that he would like to start more often in one-day races in the future, even though he has not often performed well in these races. The European Championships just three weeks later did not give Vingegaard much reassurance: he had to drop back early on.
According to Vingegaard, the fatigue after the Vuelta was too great to perform well in France. "I was unable to train for two weeks because I was simply too tired. That was exactly around the World Championships. Then I did my first training session again. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just couldn’t," he said to Feltet.
'Glad that I started'
"Of course, we had hoped that I would do better. The training sessions leading up to the European Championships went fairly well and that gave hope, but on the day itself it just didn't work out. I am glad that I started. And it immediately proves why I declined other times. I am just completely exhausted then and have nothing left to give."
"So I hope that the people who always say, 'Jonas doesn’t feel like riding for the national team,' now understand that there’s a reason why I don’t start," he concludes. "It’s now clear that if I am going to race a World or European Championship, I won’t do it if I have already ridden the Tour and the Vuelta. I want to start well prepared. Next year I would like to go to the Worlds, but we still have to see how the rest of my season shapes up."
