I was coughing up blood… Three months later I rode Tour de France

Telegraph

06-07-2025

Training for Tour de France success is a task that would make an ascetic's eyes water.
As part of his bid to topple defending champion Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard spends three weeks in May putting the hard miles in on Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains with his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates.
While his sessions are based around precise sports science, they are also not rocket science. Being optimally prepared for cycling's blue-riband race, usually decided in the Alps and Pyrenees, means getting an awful lot of peak practice – Vingegaard climbed approximately seven times the altitude gain of Mount Everest.
His one luxury comes during their coffee stops. 'I am a big fan of a cinnamon roll. We eat that a lot in Denmark. I also like carrot cake… I like my cakes,' he says, speaking to Telegraph Sport from his training camp. But life is far sweeter for Vingegaard than it was last summer.
He embarks on this year's Tour as a changed man after a horrific crash in the Itzulia Basque Country race last April, leaving him with a collapsed lung, several broken ribs and a broken collarbone.
🚨 CAÍDA EN EL PELOTÓN🚨
Entre los caídos, Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel, Quinten Hermans y Jonas Vingegaard
🏆 @bancosabadell
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— Itzulia Basque Country (@ehitzulia) April 4, 2024
'I was there on the ground, I almost couldn't breathe and I was coughing up blood,' Vingegaard says. 'I said to myself that if I survive, I will never do another bike race again.
'Then around three months later, I'm racing the Tour de France again. Obviously, I changed my mind,' he says wryly. 'The reason I then continued was I promised myself to be more careful and to think more about what can actually happen. Instead of always thinking it doesn't happen to me, it can't happen to me … I was a bit nonchalant about the danger in the sport before. At one point, you can't avoid the crashes anymore.'
It was a miracle, given the extent of his injuries and a mere six weeks of pre-race training, that Vingegaard subsequently finished second. He even won one of the race's most entertaining stages, at Le Lioran in a sprint finish against Pogačar.
With a season's rebuilding behind him, the 28-year-old describes himself as 'almost incomparable' to 2024. 'I am completely different, my body is completely different now because I lost so much muscle mass,' he says. 'Muscle creates power so now I have a lot more power but also I am a bit heavier because I have more muscle again … I know my level can be a lot better than it was last year.'
The man standing in his way at the 2025 Tour, which started in Lille on Saturday, is pre-race favourite Pogačar. The UAE Team Emirates leader won six stages on the way to last year's Tour crown and later took his first road-race world title.
'He is the guy to beat, obviously. But I have beaten him two times in the Tour de France,' Vingegaard says, referring to his 2022 and 2023 triumphs. 'So together with the preparation of last year, that gives me a lot of confidence that I can really fight for the victory and that I can beat him.'
Coming from the understated Vingegaard, that is borderline bravado. The question is, how exactly does he beat the sport's dominant force? 'To be a good stage racer, you need to have a high [lactate] threshold and a high VO2 max. Those are some of my biggest qualities. You also need to be very strong mentally over three weeks. But also Tadej is extremely good in this,' he concedes.
Pogačar is the yin to Vingegaard's yang, pro cycling's Mr Versatility who exudes calm and happy-go-lucky charm while hoovering up race wins. The popular Slovenian has been a star since his pro cycling salad days and goes on occasional rides around his home in Monte Carlo with Formula One star Carlos Sainz.
In contrast, Vingegaard took several years to assume the mantle of leadership and would occasionally be sick with nerves before races. He eschews the prestigious spring one-day races in which Pogačar also excels to make the Tour his be-all and end-all. A devoted family man, he is happiest spending time with his wife and two children at their house in the Jutland countryside.
'Tadej is probably a bit more extrovert and I'm a bit more introvert. I would also just enjoy it if I was at home, not famous, nobody knew who I am,' Vingegaard says.
For all their differences, their ding-dong rivalry, played out on the Tour's steep hors-catégorie mountains and decisive time-trials since 2021, is defining an era in pro cycling. The Tour score is currently Pogačar 3, Vingegaard 2.
'I have a lot of respect for him. I cannot say if he has respect for me, but it feels that way. It seems like we have genuine respect for each other,' he says.
Vingegaard avoids selecting a particular stage on the 2025 Tour route that sticks out for him. 'It's really difficult to say because there are so many stages that are extremely hard,' he says, adding: 'It's actually harder than first thought. So, for me, there's not one stage standing out, but more like the whole Tour.'
The final week ought to be the hardest and most decisive, including stage finishes on Mont Ventoux, the mountain where British star Tom Simpson died during the 1967 race, and the lofty Col de la Loze in the Alps.
The strength-in-depth of Vingegaard's eight-man Visma-Lease a Bike team, which includes Britain's Giro d'Italia winner Simon Yates, could be pivotal.
There are potential tactical lessons to be gleaned from how Vingegaard paved the way for his first Tour title in 2022. After following a barrage of accelerations from the Dane and his team-mates, Pogačar overstretched, blew up and lost almost three minutes on the Col du Granon. 'You need to have a very strong team, otherwise you are not going to win the Tour. Probably my level and the team I had behind me [were key],' Vingegaard says.
If the 'careful one' can topple his carefree adversary, it would mark a remarkable sporting comeback. In that case, the boulangeries of Paris had better be ready for a run on cinnamon rolls.