Annamiek Van Vleuten on the worrying sign of Vingegaard looking over his shoulder on Blockhaus

Jonas Vingegaard won the first mountain stage of the Giro d'Italia on Blockhaus on Friday — but did so with 'only' 13 seconds over second-placed Felix Gall of Decathlon CMA CGM. The Dane's performance left both Annemiek van Vleuten and American analyst Tom Danielson less than fully convinced — the former via Dutch Eurosport, and the latter on X.

Van Vleuten gave her analysis on the Kop over Kop podcast. "He kept looking over his shoulder the whole time — because he could feel someone was still coming," she said. "When a rider is confident, he doesn't look back. He just keeps his head down and rides."

"He was very conscious that riders were still close behind him. That sends a message to them — that he himself was frustrated they were still in with a chance," the Dutchwoman continued. "I thought that was a sign that he didn't feel quite in the absolute top of his form. He does open a gap, of course — but it's not a huge one."

Former American professional Tom Danielson shared Van Vleuten's view. His full tweet read:

"What an epic first big mtn stage at the Giro. This is what I saw: I wouldn't get too excited seeing Gall so close to Jonas. Visma raced the first mountain stage extremely aggressively with an undertrained Jonas."

"I don't think his threshold and VO2 zones are super sharp and defined — and probably the brutal Visma climbing pace pulled more glycogen from his legs than expected. You could see that Jonas was slowly building his lead with a high cadence until suddenly in the final kilometres his cadence slowed dramatically, showing signs of fatigue."

"His riding style also changed, from steady high wattage to fluctuations in pace. They even showed Jonas's wattage and he was jumping between 330W and 400W in the finale. Meanwhile Gall climbed perfectly, stayed within his zones, used a high cadence, and ultimately finished close. I think Jonas will sharpen into these zones and will begin to increase his lead over others as we continue."