Denmark's highest point, Yding Skovhoj, sits at an altitude of 173 meters.

This did not prevent the country from breeding one of the best climbers on the planet with Jonas Vingegaard who, on this Grande Boucle, took the advantage in the Alps to better knock out the competition in the Pyrenees.

In the absence of slopes, the pale and frail Dane (1.75 m, 60 kg) developed his skills by riding against the wind which always blows in Hillerslev, the village of 370 inhabitants in the northwest of the country, where he was born 25 years ago.

At the beginning, he struggled with his featherweight, which explains why he is not among the best in the youth categories.

Already in football, which he practiced before discovering the bike, he was "always the smallest and least strong of the band", he recalls.

Jonas Vingegaard in Rocamadour on Saturday July 23 for the 20th and penultimate stage of the Tour de France Thomas SAMSON AFP

As a teenager, when he began to show cycling skills, his parents, Claus and Karina Vingegaard, took him to the French Alps for a vacation in a motorhome.

A revelation.

Dance with the stars

"We were going there for him to train. At the beginning, I climbed with him but he had made five or six round trips by the time I reached the top! We climbed the Glandon, the Galibier. Then , from 2015, we spent all our July months at the Bourg-Saint-Maurice campsite. We saw the Tour pass twice in Alpe d'Huez", says in the newspaper L'Equipe Claus, builder of salmon farms, still present with his wife in Alpe d'Huez on July 14 to encourage their son.

In the family, Jonas is not the first star: his mother-in-law, Rosa Kildhal, is a celebrity since she participated in the Danish version of the TV shows Best Pastry Chef and Dancing with the Stars.

With Jonas, we enter a new dimension.

At the start of the Tour de France in Copenhagen, he was acclaimed like never before.

Faced with so much enthusiasm, he sheds a tear.

Sensitive, emotional and delicate.

Jonas Vingegaard performs a reconnaissance lap before the first stage of the Tour de France in Copenhagen on July 1, 2022 Anne-Christine POUJOULAT AFP / Archives

At the finish of each stage, his first instinct is to make a phone call to his companion Trine Hansen and their granddaughter Frida who joined him on Saturday in Rocamadour for a long hug full of tears.

"I owe them everything, they are my first supporters," he said.

While his great rival Tadej Pogacar displays a playful character and lives in Monaco, Jonas Vingegaard is discreet and still resides in his native region.

Behind the sheep, the wolf

"He knows that there are more important things than the bike. He is very family-oriented", reports his teammate Wout van Aert.

Modest too.

After having exchanged with Emmanuel Macron Thursday in Hautacam, Vingegaard launches to his team, very surprised: "he knows my name!"

Jonas Vingegaard celebrates his victory at the end of the 11th stage of the Tour de France at the top of the Col du Granon on July 13, 2022 Marco BERTORELLO AFP / Archives

"Jonas tends to hide his emotions, we worked together so that he opens up more and that it is not always me who makes the decisions", confides his campaign Trine, who is nine years older than him, at the Danish daily BT during the Tour de France.

The couple met when she was marketing manager at ColoQuick, her first professional team.

It is there that, to forge this anxious and introverted character, the bosses of the team send the young Vingegaard, 19 years old, to toughen up, on a fish market in the port of Hanstholm.

From dawn, he packs sole and cod there before going to train in the afternoon.

It's hard.

But he reveals himself.

"Behind his sheep's appearance, he's a wolf," says Brian Pedersen, the boss of ColoQuick.

Vingegaard ends up catching the eye of the Jumbo-Visma, in which he breaks out with a second place on the Tour in 2021 to top off a fairly meager record.

"He has gained confidence. He has changed a lot, he has become a leader," insists Wout van Aert.

Jonas Vingegaard with his daughter after the 20th and penultimate stage of the Tour de France in Rocamadour, Saturday July 23 Anne-Christine POUJOULAT AFP

With success also inevitably come questions about doping in a country where former riders like Bjarne Riis or Michael Rasmussen have been overtaken by the patrol.

He promises: "we are completely clean. I can guarantee it to everyone, nobody takes anything illegal, you have to trust us".

© 2022 AFP