Matteo Jorgenson on team trial victory, watching Vingegaard on TV and lessons for the Tour de France

Tuesday’s team time trial victory at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes went to Matteo Jorgenson. The American leader was naturally delighted. The cherry on the cake is that Visma | Lease a Bike now looks to be in excellent shape in this discipline ahead of the Tour de France. But what does it really mean for Barcelona? IDL Pro Cycling asked him.

It did not take long for the American to admit that plenty had also gone wrong on Tuesday. “This did not go as planned, not at all,” Jorgenson opened in the flash interview. “We lost Wout van Aert early. He did not feel super.” On top of that: “Ben Tulett nearly crashed and then punctured on the descent, which was a bad moment for us.”

Even so, the team recovered brilliantly. “In the last ten kilometres we could not have gone much faster than we did now.” After a fine lead-out from Bruno Armirail and Jørgen Nordhagen, Jorgenson raced to the fastest time of the day. “It is very special to stand on the podium here together. I just said that it is seven times better than winning alone.”

The strong climber is now fourth in the standings, but he was not looking too far ahead yet. “We have to take it day by day.” His lead, though? “That definitely promises well. It is very nice to come back after the spring I have had and be back at the top. We have worked hard for that.”

Not long afterwards, Jorgenson told IDL Pro cycling and others that the win means a great deal. “I really wanted to win in the Ardennes this year. That did not happen, because I could not even take part. To come here and win straight away feels very good.”

“That makes me very proud to ride for this team. Today’s performance is thanks to a lot of collective work. Both from management and the riders,” he said, echoing similar sentiment to team boss Mathieu Heijboer.

Jorgenson also knew: “We have put a lot of work into this, including in Sierra Nevada. We saw Jonas win the Giro on TV. Hopefully we can come together again before Barcelona to train on this as a team, so that we can win the team time trial in the Tour,” the American climber said.

IDL Pro Cycling asked him what this day means for the Tour de France. How different was Tuesday’s stage? “It is not in Barcelona and it is a different course, so it is not the same. But it is very similar, because it is the same discipline,” said Jorgenson.

“So it was a very good test,” he continued. “We have already learned a lot from the training in Sierra Nevada. We will definitely analyse today’s time trial in depth. We lost some riders, so it did not go exactly as planned.”

“We will certainly practise this again for the team time trial in the Tour de France. After this we will go to altitude and then we will have the whole team together. Then we can do the final bits.”

Author: Gauthier Ribeiro