Could the mountains jersey time trial rule hand Vingegaard's rivals a gift at the Giro?

Jonas Vingegaard is in a strong position at the Giro d'Italia. The Visma | Lease a Bike Dane has already taken time on his rivals and may well do so again on Sunday. He doesn't yet have the pink jersey, but as a consolation prize he is now wearing the blue mountains classification jersey. But according to Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld on his podcast In De Waaier, this may actually hurt him in the upcoming time trial.

The rule in question is one of professional cycling's more obscure regulations: if a rider holds a classification jersey — mountains, points, or young rider — at the start of a time trial, they must wear the official race-issued version of that jersey for the TT, rather than their own team's custom-fitted, aerodynamically optimised skinsuit. For a specialist time trialist like Vingegaard, whose team has spent thousands of hours in the wind tunnel fine-tuning every detail of his TT kit, this is a genuine competitive disadvantage.

"It's a bit of an awkward situation," Zonneveld said. "He sits just above Diego Pablo Sevilla in the mountains classification, and that is simply going to cost him time in the time trial. He gave the pink jersey neatly to Eulálio — Eulálio has enough of a lead, because Vingegaard knew he wouldn't just ride into pink on Blockhaus. But in the process he accumulated so many mountain points that he now suddenly leads Sevilla."

Even so, Zonneveld acknowledges that Vingegaard had little choice. "Should he have held back, and handed Gall the stage win and the bonus seconds? That costs more than the time trial. What else could he have done? He didn't accidentally pick up those mountain points. In last year's Tour, Vingegaard and Pogacar were sprinting for mountain points — that was a completely different situation, an ego thing, and suddenly Pogacar was in the polka-dot jersey. That wasn't the case here."

"It is a genuinely long time trial," he continued. Zonneveld then ran the numbers — and they gave him pause. "Over 42 kilometres, I think it could be as much as a minute's difference," he estimated. "If you wanted to let Gall come back: thirteen seconds, with four seconds of bonus time... But that would be a really strange decision to make."

Visma | Lease a Bike will of course have had since Friday to make adjustments to the race-issued TT skinsuit. "But that is very limited. You can sew a few things here and there, but they spend the entire year in the wind tunnel making sure the right materials are in the right places. For every rider, that is different. The fabric Jonas Vingegaard has on his back in his own TT skinsuit is different from what the race organisation provides for him."

It is a question that has surfaced before. Mattias Skjelmose lost 1 minute 20 seconds to Ethan Hayter over just 25 kilometres while wearing the race leader's jersey at the Tour of Luxembourg. He blamed the TT skinsuit at the time. On the other hand: Tadej Pogacar finished second in the time trial around Caen at last year's Tour de France — and he did so wearing the polka-dot jersey. He gained over a minute on Vingegaard in that TT.

Zonneveld's preference would be to change the rules. Why shouldn't jersey holders be allowed to ride their own TT kit, with a coloured handlebar ribbon to identify their classification? "Sportingly, I think there is a very strong case for it — teams put enormous amounts of time, money and energy into this. But the reality is that there is a large Italian clothing sponsor involved, and they simply want to sell those skinsuits. They don't want Vingegaard — or any other top rider — racing in their own TT kit."