PARIS — With his head down and his legs bent, Jonas Wingegaard crossed the finish line of the penultimate stage of the Tour de France on Saturday and cupped his hand over his mouth as if to stifle a breath. He had done what he had come to do, and his astonishing achievement was sinking into view.
In just his second Tour de France and just three years after turning professional, Vingegaard, a 25-year-old Danish rider, had sealed victory in cycling’s most prestigious race.
His victory became official on Sunday, when the race ended with the traditional holiday ride to Paris. But the Tour had effectively been over for days, and when Wingegaard finished second in Saturday’s time trial behind his Jumbo-Visma team-mate Wout van Aert of Belgium, his effort over the 25-mile course was enough to leave him with such a big lead in general classification – 3 minutes 34 seconds ahead of his nearest pursuer – that the final stage brought almost no drama.
Vingegaard steered clear of danger in the final laps of Paris, crossing – safely – with his teammates well behind the peloton.
“Since last year, I’ve always believed I could do it,” Vingegaard said Saturday. “It’s a relief to me.”
After about three full weeks of the Tour, Vingegaard, as he did on Saturday, immediately sought out his partner and young daughter in the area past the finish line after the time trial and gave them a long, sweaty hug.
As Vingegaard had pedaled up and down all the endless hills and unforgiving mountains and across all the flat roads past the flower fields and farms, he wanted to win for them. During each day of scorching heat that reached over 100 degrees at times, melting pavement and sidelining some riders with heat exhaustion, he said he prepared for them.
And in the end, Vingegaard, who grew up in a small fishing town in northern Denmark, won what was perhaps one of the most grueling Tours in history.
Tadej Pogakar, the Slovenian rider looking for his third consecutive Tour victory, finished second in the general classification after battling with Wingegaard for the lead until the final days of the race. Geraint Thomas of Great Britain, the 2018 Tour winner, is third. Every other competitor was at least 13 minutes behind.
“I think the fight between me and Jonas was really something special,” Pogacar, 23, said Saturday, acknowledging the final outcome. He offered the only hint of a surprise on Sunday: a late sprint to the lead on Sunday’s final lap, though he was immediately dropped back into the lead group.
“It’s going to be an interesting couple of years for us,” Pogakar said of the budding rivalry with Vingegor. “He stepped up from last year, took control of things from the start and proved he is a strong rider.”
Going into this tour, Pogacar most likely expected Vingegaard to be his biggest challenger after Vingegaard’s incredible second place finish last year.
In 2021, Jumbo-Visma’s top rider, Primož Roglic, dropped out of the Tour after a crash, and Vingegaard set out to show what he could do. His performance was breathtaking – and unexpected. On the daunting Mont Ventoux, he left Pogacar behind to record one of the fastest times on that legendary climb.
Vingegaard’s entire career is nothing short of a fairy tale played out on two wheels and fast forward.
Six months before joining Jumbo-Visma in 2019, he worked part-time in a Danish factory gutting, cleaning and packing fish into ice-filled boxes. He previously worked at a fish auction. He credits those days of waking up at 4 a.m. and all that hard physical labor in the shivering cold to get him to where he is now, at the top of the cycling world.
His Jumbo-Visma team, especially van Aert, was by his side all the way.
Van Aert had his own remarkable race, spending every day of the Tour except the first with the green jersey, which is awarded to the rider who accumulated the most points for the final stages and middle sprint sections. But his biggest achievement over the past three weeks may have been his support for Vingegaard.
Van Aert was by Vingegaard’s side when his team-mate needed him most during the grueling Hautakam climb, which proved to be the deciding stage of the overall race. He broke away and relentlessly dictated a fast pace, challenging the notion, at 6-foot-3, that light, smaller riders like Vingegaard and Pogacar are naturally the best climbers.
Pogacar, who was battling Vingegaard for the overall lead, was unable to make it. As Vingegaard and van Aert continued to climb, the Pogacar faded away looking like a car with a sputtering engine as the Jumbo-Visma teammates moved forward.
The Jumbo-Visma team won six of the Tour’s 20 stages going into Sunday’s finale. After Saturday’s stage, however, Vingegaard faced questions about his storied career. A reporter asked him about his rapid rise in the sport and how he was able to finish 22nd in the 2019 Danish National Time Trial and then almost win Saturday’s time trial three weeks into the Tour.
If Vingegaard was at all familiar with the history of the Tour or the history of Danish racing, it is possible that he expected the question. The only other Dane to win the Tour was Bjarne Riis in 1996, and a decade later Riis admitted to doping to win the race. Many past winners, though none recently, have been caught doping or admitted to doing so.
No, Vingegaard said, he wasn’t driving fast because he was doped. This happened because he and his team improved its aerodynamics, working in the wind tunnel and adjusting the position of its body and bike.
“We are completely clean,” he said at his press conference, expanding his denial to include his entire team. “Each one of us. I can say that to every one of you. None of us take anything illegal.
High-altitude training camps and attention to detail — in food, in equipment, in preparation — are behind Jumbo-Visma’s rise, he said. “That’s why you have to trust,” he said.
Vingegaard seems to take sportsmanship seriously. On a descent during Stage 18, Pogakar crashes on a gravel patch as he and Vingegord descend a hill almost side by side. But instead of taking advantage of Pogacar’s fall, Vingegaard waited for him down the road, allowing his rival to catch up.
After they were reunited, Pogacar reached out in thanks and both hands clasped in a moment that will be replayed for years as an example of the good side of the sport.
But only one of them was invited to take the podium in Paris and celebrate on the Champs-Élysées. Only one can pose for photos and family memories that will last a lifetime. And only one will be celebrated in his homeland this summer as the king of cycling.
A series of ceremonies honoring Vingegaard is already scheduled in Copenhagen, the city that hosted the start of this year’s Tour – the start of Vingegaard’s journey to victory.
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