Double Excursion de France champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Rent a Motorbike) has stated that he thinks skilled biking is simply too unhealthy for him to permit his youngsters to take part in it, had been they to invite if they may practice in his wheeltracks.
Vingegaard suffered life-threatening accidents in a mass crash closing yr within the Itzulia Basque Nation, during which a large number of riders had been harm.
In a long interview right through the Volta ao Algarve with Nieuwsblad, Vingegaard stated that organisers had a job to play in making the game more secure, in addition to the UCI.
However he additionally stated that some riders had been partially liable for the game having its dangers, arguing that some riders “race as if there are no brakes on a bike.”
Asked by Nieuwsblad if he would let his two children race when they were older, Vingegaard answered: “To be fair, if my daughter or son asks that query – ‘daddy, are we able to race?’ – the solution is ‘no’. The way in which the game is now… It’s simply too unhealthy.”
Lately collaborating in Paris-Great, right through the interview Vingegaard additionally mentioned his Itzulia crash on a sweeping, speedy downhill segment of street working via dense forest, explaining that during his opinion the organisers had made an error by means of “sending us down a road with tree roots underneath it”.
Then again, he stated that different components involving the riders additionally made racing extra unhealthy too.
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“We riders also fight and race at times when it is not really necessary. That was also noticeable in the Algarve: sometimes we fight for position for a bend that goes nowhere. Sometimes there is too little respect.”
Vingegaard also pointed out that riders battling for position could have been responsible for the terrible crash suffered by teammate Wout van Aert last year in Dwars door Vlaanderen. He concluded: “Too many riders race as if there are no brakes on a bike.”
“In general, I would say that everyone in cycling needs to realise the scale of the safety problem. That is still not the case enough. And everyone has a responsibility: the riders themselves, the organisers and the UCI.”
This is not the first time Vingegaard has discussed race safety this season in public. At the Volta ao Algarve, after numerous riders went off course late on stage 1, the next day at the start Vingegaard called on the UCI to take action.
“One thing like this should not occur in biking, I feel the organisers will have to take this significantly and the UCI as smartly,” Vingegaard stated.
“It wasn’t actually transparent the place we needed to pass. For my part, in a dash we need to have it transparent the place we need to pass and the place we will have to now not pass.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Vingegaard also discussed how he had only begun succeeding at a relatively late age in the sport, how Wout van Aert was the “highest helper you might want to have in a race,” and his extreme anxiety as a young amateur and again as a young pro, which caused him to vomit at times from his nervousness during races themselves.
He also rejected the idea that his racing style was in no way spontaneous, pointing to a stage in the Tour de France in 2023 where Visma changed their strategy mid-race because they intuited – correctly – that arch-rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had been vulnerable to attack.
“Tadej has his taste, I’ve mine. However every now and then it bothers me just a little once we are portrayed as ‘calculated’,” he stated.
“Every so often we actually do issues on instinct. An instance: at the level to Marie Blanc in 2023 within the Excursion we stated prematurely that we’d on no account assault. However in any case we felt that Pogačar was once at his restrict and we modified the whole lot.”
Methods for Paris-Great
“That’s why I’m riding the Volta a Catalunya instead of the Tour of the Basque Country,” Vingegaard defined. “Winning them all is almost impossible, but I want to try and collect as many as I can.”
“You win as a team. We have already proven that we can also be at our best with multiple leaders at the start.”
“We [Vingegaard and Jorgenson] have a very good courting. It’s not that i am a egocentric man who best thinks of himself. If he will get right into a extra promising place than me, I can gladly sacrifice myself;” he defined.
“I don’t see Matteo as a rival, however as an best friend. Within the Algarve I used to be just a little remoted, which made it tough from time to time. With an additional asset that adjustments. Now we will be able to make issues more difficult for the opposition.”
