Tour boss Prudhomme sees ‘excellent news’ thanks to Vingegaard

With strong winds and relentless rain, stage four of what is ironically known as the Race to the Sun turned into a battlefield. Vingegaard stayed out of trouble and eventually took victory on the final climb to Uchon. A day later, the Danish Visma rider won again, this time by a wide margin. Lenny Martinez denied him a third stage win, but the overall victory was already secured.

And in some style. After eight gruelling days in France, Vingegaard won the Race to the Sun by no fewer than 4 minutes and 23 seconds over runner-up Daniel Felipe Martínez of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. Georg Steinhauser of EF Education-EasyPost finished a fine third overall, but he still conceded more than six minutes to the eventual winner.

With that commanding performance, Vingegaard emphatically gained revenge in Paris-Nice, a race he had never previously managed to win and in which he had so often been dogged by bad luck. “Paris-Nice had never really smiled on Jonas Vingegaard,” Prudhomme recalled in an interview with RMC. “Two years ago he finished third behind Tadej Pogacar and David Gaudu. Last year he had to abandon while he was still leading that morning. He crashed.”

The Frenchman knows exactly what that meant. “So he was highly motivated to win.” And he did just that. “Very much so. It is clearly a message to Pogacar, who has dominated — even crushed — the last two editions of the Tour de France, letting him know that he will be there in July,” Prudhomme said, already looking ahead eagerly to the Tour.

To win the Tour de France twice before ever winning Paris-Nice is, in itself, a unique achievement for Vingegaard. “He is following the opposite path to a number of other riders, because he has already won the Tour twice before putting Paris-Nice on his palmarès. But that undoubtedly means he will be ready for the Tour de France, and that is excellent news,” the Tour boss concluded.