Anyone who takes part in professional cycling races and wins them must reckon with an obligatory question: about doping. The new Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard takes it easy. His teammate Wout van Aert, on the other hand, doesn't feel like answering this "shitty question".
Jonas Vingegaard had of course expected this question in the hour of triumph. And was well prepared. A US journalist wanted to know whether one could trust his performance in the Tour de France. "We're totally clean. Each of us. I can speak for the whole team. None of us take anything forbidden," said the superior winner of the 109th Tour of France, while also explaining what his team Jumbo-Visma is doing better than other. "We are so good because of our preparation. We have developed high-altitude training camps. We look at the material, the nutrition, the training. The team is one of the best in these areas. That's why you have to believe us."
The question of the legitimacy of the achievements is firmly entwined with the recent history of cycling. All tour winners in this century were asked, sometimes answered in detail, sometimes taciturnly. Or just snotty like Vingegaard's teammate Wout van Aert. "It's such a shitty question. It comes up every time someone wins the tour. Because we're so good, we have to justify ourselves? I don't understand," said the Belgian, after all a multiple stage winner and winner of the green jersey of this tour.
Possibly Vingegaard understands the question better - if only from the historical context. The 25-year-old was not yet born when Bjarne Riis became the first Dane to win the tour in 1996 and the country started the boom that Germany experienced a year later with Jan Ullrich. In 2007, Riis finally broke the hearts of his compatriots when he admitted doping with almost outrageous indifference. That same year, Vingegaard discovered his love for cycling when his father took him to a stage of the Tour of Denmark.
It wasn't just Riis. There was also Michael Rasmussen. Who - it was also in 2007 - was taken out of the race as the overall leader of the tour because he had given false information about his whereabouts during the preparation. And yet the Danes remained true to cycling. A journalist from the newspaper "Jyllands Posten" from Vingegaard's homeland says that you always watched the tour in Denmark in the summer. That's just tradition. In addition, there is very good association and youth work, many races, good scouting.
And so a small country like Denmark always produces great talent like Vingegaard. The lightweight from Jutland doesn't have the premium gene pool of his great adversary Tadej Pogacar. "If you look closely, he took the long way," said Ralph Denk, boss of the German team Bora-hansgrohe.
Slovenian Pogacar won his first tour at the age of 21. At the same age, Vingegaard was still standing in a fish factory on the west coast in the morning and only got on his bike in the afternoon. The 23-year-old Pogacar was already ahead of everyone in the junior races, while Vingegaard was cycling under the radar. It wasn't until Jumbo-Visma was made aware of him by Vingegaard's Danish amateur team in 2018 and given access to his training data that his career really took off.
At the beginning of the tour, Vingegaard acted as a double leader with Primoz Roglic, but the Slovenian fell on the fifth stage and slipped into the role of helper. Vingegaard rose to the lead and checkmated Pogacar with two big attacks. First he rode the yellow jersey at the Col du Granon in the Alps, then he secured his triumph at Hautacam in the Pyrenees. The latter is an astonishing parallel to Riis, who also eliminated any remaining doubts in the ski resort when he triumphed in 1996.
For Vingegaard there will be a reception on Copenhagen's City Hall Square on Wednesday - as there was for Riis. "I'm really looking forward to the week. It will certainly be very stressful, but also very exciting," said Vingegaard. It's up to him to give credence to his words about doping in the years to come. He will always be asked about the clean tour winner.
