Zonneveld saw 'anxious' Vingegaard before the crash: 'Constantly losing track of teammates'

Visma | Lease a Bike will enter the final week of the Tour de France in mourning following the withdrawal of team leader Jonas Vingegaard. The Dane broke his collarbone in a crash during the final descent of Stage 15. It was a major disappointment, but Thijs Zonneveld had already noticed a pattern emerging. According to the analyst, Vingegaard had been struggling on descents for some time, and it was only a matter of time before a problem arose.

Vingegaard took a spill on a roundabout, about twenty kilometers from the finish line. He was the first to fall, and was immediately the worst off: the other riders involved in the crash were able to continue, but he remained on the ground. After he dismounted, he was diagnosed with a broken collarbone. It’s the end of the Tour for the Dane, and a major blow for Visma | Lease a Bike.

However, in his podcast In de Waaier, Zonneveld says that he had been watching Vingegaard struggle on the descents throughout the entire Tour. “You could see very clearly there that Vingegaard kept losing track of his teammates ahead of him, that he was falling behind a bit,” he said after the stage. “We saw it yesterday, too: we were standing on the side of the descent, and everyone was bunched up together—except for Vingegaard. As a rider, you recognize the pattern: you can tell he’s nervous.”

As an additional example, the Dutch analyst points to the tenth stage to Le Lioran, where, while chasing Tadej Pogacar, he was the first to reach the top of the final climb. “Vingegaard was the first to start the descent toward the finish there, in the group with Seixas, Ayuso, Lipowitz, and Skjelmose. He was the last to come out of it. Other riders realized: ‘Oh no, you’re going too slow—I want to pass you.’”

According to Zonneveld, this is a recent development for the Danish climber. “If you look at it over the course of several years, Vingegaard was the better descender at first. We had a Tour where Pogacar tried to drop Vingegaard on the descent to Hautacam. That didn’t work out; in fact, Pogacar crashed, Vingegaard waited, the handshake… You know the story.”

Of course, the crash in the 2024 Tour of the Basque Country is often cited as the cause, but the former pro cyclist still thought he was handling the descents well, even after his near-death experience. “Even after the crash in the Basque Country—where you’d think he might have been a bit nervous on the descent—Pogacar attacked in Italy, and Vingegaard was right on his wheel during the descent. You really thought, ‘How do you manage to shut out your fear?’”

But especially lately, the Dane has been struggling with his descent. “In general, you can really say that his descent form has declined. Reef confirms that he’s had trouble with it, but that they thought they’d fixed it. Statistically speaking, that’s hard to substantiate, even when you see how he reacts in the peloton.”