Jonas Vingegaard, the climber who cleaned fish

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Mollehoj is the highest point on the Jutland peninsula, just 171 meters above sea level.

In the country where there are no mountains, however, a cyclist was born who has written the first page of glory of his record with a climbing exhibition as is not remembered, in the alpine summit of Granon (2,413 meters) and in the Pyrenees of Hautacam (1,520).

The

(Hillerslev, Denmark, 1996), so light that when he was a teenager his coaches feared that the wind would play tricks on him, he was forged on the small studs, barely steep, through which he traveled in his first three stages this edition 109 of the Tour that he was finally going to conquer.

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But where does this shy blonde devil come from that a couple of years ago no one knew?

«I remember that the first time I heard about him was when he broke the record for the climb to Coll de Rates.

I thought: 'wow, he's really fast' », says his compatriot

, the only precedent of a great

vikingo, about that initiatory episode of March 2018. In that Alicante ascent that so many professional cyclists use as a test from Parcent, in the classic winter concentrations in Calpe, Vingegaard broke the clock when he was still competing with the Danish Team Coloquick, a Continental category team where it was formed

In the video circulating on the internet, Jonas's ease can already be seen, as he passes cyclists as if he were rolling on a plain while his director shouts for more and more from the car.

«In Denmark he was not well known.

I would say that until the last Tour de France.

He is very shy, very quiet.

And he is a person who has not lavished himself in the media at all », continues Rasmussen, emphatically:« Mont Ventoux changed his career ».

Vingegaard, with his wife and daughter, in Rocamadour.Tim de Waele / POOLEFE

That was last year, where Vingegaard suddenly, when

lost his chances to

due to a crash, took the reins of the Jumbo Visma to finish second in the Tour.

A revelation.

"Last year I realized that I had the level to win a Tour," he admitted on Saturday in Rocamadour.

In the 2021 ascent to the colossus of Provence, Jonas left the leader off the wheel, for the first time he made him human, anticipating what had happened these weeks.

Later, still inexperienced, he was unable to maintain his advantage in the descent:

caught him near Malaucène.

Before that, in Vingegaard's record there was hardly a stage of the Tour of Poland.

In the Tour of Spain the previous year, he went unnoticed.

Although he left an interesting note: his best position was nothing less than in the Angliru, where he finished 14th.

His explosion, somewhat late for current cycling, has several reasons.

Until the age of 17, the stress, which he has overcome with a lot of work, made him vomit before each test.

And five years ago he suffered a broken femur in a fall.

Before and after that, Jonas had even worked in a fish plant in his country, in the port of Hanstholm.

“I didn't need to work, but I still didn't know if I could become a professional cyclist.

I only ran in Denmark a couple of days a week and this way I could keep myself busy without getting bored.

I liked,

even if I had to wake up at five in the morning.

It was a bit relaxing since I didn't have to think too much », she recounted without blushing afterwards.

Tim Heemskerk

It had been in 2019 when everything began to take shape.

Already in the structure of the Jumbo Visma, Vingegaard's career crossed paths with that of

, a former Dutch cyclist, a specialist in high performance who has brought out all the virtues of his pupil.

«When I met him he told me that he was not working like a professional.

At his side I have learned a lot and I have improved », he was sincere during the current Tour, which he prepared at the altitude of the Sierra Nevada first and the Alps later, in a two-week concentration in Tignès with Roglic.

He arrived at the start in Copenhagen with no sign of the physical problems with his Achilles tendon that have plagued him of late.

Vingegaard had grown up being a fan of handball, swimming and badminton and at the age of 11 his parents took him to the start of a stage of the Tour of Denmark, where everything changed.

He soon learned firsthand what the mountains were like, too.

Several summers he went on family vacations in a caravan to Bourg-Saint-Maurice.

«My first idol was

, but I stopped admiring him when he was involved in doping.

Later, I noticed

because of his attacking attitude, because he never gave up », he admits.

Among the manias of the introverted Vingegaard, who always responds to the press with a characteristic "Yeaaah" and often chews after the stage, is that of picking up the phone and immediately calling his wife,

, 11 years older than him, already Frida, her two-year-old girl, whom she was finally able to hug after the Rocamadour time trial.

"My girls at home," he repeats fondly.

As a curiosity, his mother-in-law,

, is a celebrity in Denmark: she is a cook who has participated in several television programs.

The last of the reasons for Vingegaard's success, aside from 'maturity', is the Danish cycling boom.

Rasmussen explains it, one of the pioneers together with

.

«We are a very strong country financially and cycling is a very expensive sport for young people, they have to buy the bikes and everything else.

You need financial support from your parents, to take you to the races, etc... If the country is strong, it has the possibility of creating structures.

We have several good clubs that train runners.

And that is not the best weather there.

But everyone rides a bike.

The normal thing is to go to school, to work, to everything by bicycle, ”reasons the now analyst.

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