First walk, then roller and finally road: Vingegaard's plan to face the Tour

Jonas Vingegaard, already back home after leaving the hospital in Vitoria, already has a plan for the next two weeks. A period in which his intention is to start moving, first by taking walks, then starting to ride a bike on the roller, and finally, returning to the road to begin with proper training. The success of this plan will determine the final decision to attend the Tour de France or not.

Vingegaard's options to reach the Tour will be defined in the next 2 weeks

After these weeks of total secrecy about the health status of Jonas Vingegaard after the serious fall suffered in the fourth stage of the recently disputed Itzulia, Visma-Lease a Bike's sports director, Frans Maassen, spoke to a Danish television channel about the next steps that await the cyclist in the coming weeks in his recovery process.

As we have been explaining, of all the injuries that Jonas Vingegaard suffered in his crash, the most worrying is the pneumothorax in the lung, followed by the various rib fractures, something that the team's technician emphasized, pointing out that in the next few weeks they will see the evolution of these ailments before even considering training.

“First he will walk, then he will ride on the roller and then on the road, I can't say how long. The important thing is that he recovers and then we will prepare a plan for him”, Maessen specified.

A preparation for the Tour de France that is completely up in the air when, let's not forget, there are less than 72 days left until the start of the Grande Boucle. For now, a few days ago, the sports director Merijn Zeeman already indicated that Vingegaard would not take part in the altitude training camp that the team has planned for the month of May.

Furthermore, he also made it clear that the cyclist would not go to the Tour if he is not in a condition to fight for victory “For Jonas, it is important to be 100% ready for the Tour. It is a really tough race, he has won it twice and I don't think he wants to go just to be in the top 10. He has to arrive in his best form. We will see in the coming weeks if it is realistic to do it”.

In the team, they have set a two-week deadline to assess whether it is sensible or not to continue with the preparation for the Tour de France although if we look at the precedents with Wout van Aert and his participation in the Giro d'Italia, the reality due to the type of injuries suffered seems to make Jonas Vingegaard's participation in the Tour de France extremely complicated. In fact, as a fact, Wout van Aert uploaded his first outdoor bike ride to Strava yesterday, with a mountain bike, surely to minimize the impacts as much as possible after the Belgian cyclist mentioned a few days ago that rib fractures were preventing him from training.

If we consider that specific preparation for a race like the Tour de France lasts around two months, plus at least a couple of weeks of prior conditioning as a mini pre-season after the long break, the reality is that Jonas Vingegaard has barely any margin to start his training.