Jonas Vingegaard may have won the Tour de France this year, after a great individual and team performance, but management at Jumbo Visma have now said it is not certain he will go back to the French Grand Tour and defend his title next year.
Having reviewed the Giro d'Italia route, Jumbo-Visma sporting director Merijn Zeeman says the course looks ideally suited to their Danish star. He now plans to discuss the issue with Vingegaard before they decided whether he and team mate Primož Roglič will ride the Giro or the Tour. It raises the prospect of a clash at the Giro between world champion Remco Evenepoel and Vingegaard or Roglič.
“We have not yet decided that Jonas will go to the Tour," Zeeman said. “He is currently on vacation and when he returns I want to hear what he thinks. He has never raced the Giro either. That would also be an option if he wanted to.
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"Obviously, I think it’s pretty obvious that when you win the yellow jersey you want to defend it next year, so he could be taken for granted, but we have absolutely not decided. I want to talk about it first with Jonas and with the other coaches.”
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“I also want to hear what Primož thinks and I want to talk to all our coaches and staff members. It will take about two months to prepare all this, then in December we will know what we have to do."
The Giro features TT 70km next year and also a very hard final week in the climbs, which looks ideally suited to Vingegaard, while Roglič would also relish so much time trialing in a Grand Tour.
Evenepoel, who won the Vuelta this season, and his QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl are for now resisting the temptation of suggesting the Tour is the next obvious step for next season. Given his youth, at 22 years, the rider and his team boss, Patrick Lefevere, have both suggested the Giro is more likely next year.
If Evenepoel goes to the Giro, as seems likely, the prospect of Vingegaard or Roglič also riding the Italian Grand Tour would set up one of the biggest clashes the race has seen for years.
