Two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard has been forced to abandon this year’s race after crashing hard on the run-in to the final climb of stage 15.
The Dane, who started Sunday’s stage to Plateau de Solaison 4.30 behind yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar, crashed on the exit of a roundabout after appearing to hit a kerb and landing hard on his shoulder.
UAE Team Emirates’ Felix Großschartner and Isaac Del Toro also hit the deck in the crash, which took place with around 21km to go as Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team forced the pace ahead of the final steep climb to the finish.
After being treated while sitting on the ground holding his shoulder, Vingegaard was soon seen heading to the race medical vehicle, while looking in considerable pain, leading to him abandoning the race.
Speaking to Eurosport after the stage, Vingegaard’s Visma teammate Davide Piganzoli claimed that the crash could have been caused by a race motorbike rider at the front of the peloton.
“The motorbike was just in front of the bunch and maybe did not take the best trajectory,” Piganzoli said. “We hit something and I saw that Jonas, who was just behind me, had crashed.”
The crash brings an abrupt end to Vingegaard’s admittedly ambitious aim to secure a Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double this season, after the Dane’s imperious display on the roads of Italy in May.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider’s abandon also came on the same day he was woken up at 2am by anti-doping officials from the International Testing Agency, a scenario his teammate Matteo Jorgenson described as displaying a “complete lack of respect”.
“I was asked to keep my opinion to myself, but this shows a complete lack of respect for the riders,” Jorgenson said on Sunday morning.
“We put a huge amount of effort into recovery. It is incredibly important, particularly between two of the hardest mountain stages of this Tour. Then you are woken at 2am. That genuinely makes me angry.”
“I guess the ITA didn’t allow me to sleep much,” Vingegaard himself told Eurosport before today’s stage.
“I was sleeping very well but then somebody knocked on my door at 2am which was a surprise to me.
“Of course it’s good that they test, but when it’s affecting performance and your sleep, I don’t think it’s so good. Hopefully, I’m not the only one. It has to be equal for everybody I think. It’s not the nicest at 2am.
“I think it took me about 40 minutes before I was back in my room, so it was not the best night. I still feel okay, but just not the best night. I cannot change it, but that’s part of it I guess.”
A winner at the 2022 and 2023 Tours, Vingegaard has struggled to regain that yellow jersey-winning form in recent years, the result of ill-timed crashes, injuries, and the ever-astonishing performances of his great rival Pogačar.
However, he looked closer to his old self at the Giro, where he won five stages and clinched the general classification by over five minutes. The 29-year-old was the first yellow jersey of this year’s Tour, following the opening team time trial stage in Barcelona, but ceded the lead on stage three to Pogačar at Les Angles.
Sunday’s stage to Plateau de Solaison was won by Remco Evenpoel, the Belgian outsprinting the yellow jersey after easily responding to a series of attacks from Del Toro in the final two kilometres. Evenepoel now moves up to second on GC following Vingegaard’s withdrawal.
3 thoughts on “Two-time winner Jonas Vingegaard crashes out of Tour de France”
That was a shocking piece of course selection by the authorities, a long fast sweeper running into a ridiculously tight cutback right turn with a traffic island in the mouth of it, the surprise is not that someone was seriously injured there but that more weren’t. That should have been flagged as dangerous in the initial course reconnaissance and either a different route chosen or safety measures put in place. The Tour often pays for, or persuades the hosts to pay for, the temporary removal of dangerous obstacles like that lane divider, if it hadn’t been there there wouldn’t have been a crash.
@Rendel Harris It’s strange as that’s what I thought when one of the breakaway had to bunny hop the lane divider but when Matteo Jorgensen was asked if it was a dangerous corner he replied that it didn’t seem particularly bad. Sounds like the first rider took the wrong, outside, line and there was a touch of wheels.
Ha, told you! Lower gear rations would’ve saved Vingegaard! Way to go, UCI and organisers!
I’m just so sorry for Jonas, even though I don’t really follow pro sports. Athletes don’t deserve to bear the brunt of organisers’ indolence.