{"id":204877,"date":"2026-03-16T10:27:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T10:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=204877"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T10:30:24","slug":"after-training-setbacks-vingegaard-dominates-paris-nice-in-season-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2026\/03\/16\/after-training-setbacks-vingegaard-dominates-paris-nice-in-season-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"After Training Setbacks, Vingegaard Dominates Paris-Nice in Season Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonas Vingegaard returned from the accident and illness that disrupted his spring to score such a commanding victory in the Paris-Nice that it reminded onlookers of his rival and nemesis, Tadej Poga\u010dar. The winning margin to the rider who finished second, Daniel Mart\u00ednez (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe), was 4:23; the rider who finished third, Georg Steinhauser (EF Education\u2013EasyPost), was an astonishing 6:07 adrift, and K\u00e9vin Vauquelin (INEOS Grenadiers), in fourth, trailed Vingegaard by 6:24.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Big gaps for \u2018killer\u2019 Vingegaard<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Those are gaps that Poga\u010dar usually has in the Tour de France after three weeks; Vingegaard registered this dominance in only eight days. But they were extraordinary days, particularly Wednesday\u2019s stage 4, when biting cold, lashing rain and strong crosswinds tore apart the peloton and caused dozens of crashes on the road \u2013 and no fewer than 15 DNFs (after a final count), including that of Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), who was leading the race by 2 seconds when he crashed on a descent while riding in a small lead group that included Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

The young Spaniard\u2019s absence in the rest of the stages makes it difficult to judge just how good Vingegaard\u2019s performance was because, though Mart\u00ednez, Steinhauser and Vauquelin are excellent riders, they are not in Poga\u010dar\u2019s league. Ayuso, on the other hand, is an almost-superstar and has been in good form with his new team, so he would have provided a more accurate measure. It would also have provided a yardstick for measuring how good the Spaniard is at the moment. And the rain-disrupted stage certainly helped inflate Vingegaard\u2019s winning margins.<\/p>\n

But there was no mistaking the superstar quality of Vingegaard\u2019s performance in Thursday\u2019s stage 5. He took off 20.8km from the finish line, on a 13% ramp of the short but steep category 1 C\u00f4te de Saint-Jean-Muzols (2.2km @ 10.5%), and left his GC rivals spinning their pedals. Six kilometers later he led the seven-rider chase group by 32 seconds and continued to increase his lead over the last two climbs of the stage, crossing the line 2:02 ahead of Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) and 2:25 in front of Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) and the rest of the chasers. (Tejada went on to win Friday\u2019s stage 6 with a short, impressive solo, registering his first WorldTour victory.)<\/p>\n

As Vingegaard\u2019s invaluable teammate Victor Campenaerts put it after the stage, “Killer Jonas destroyed everybody. He\u2019s been very relaxed since the December training camp and feeling very ready for it. Clearly, when we came to Paris-Nice, already beforehand, [the goal] wasn\u2019t to do race miles or whatever. It was to come here and smash it.”<\/p>\n

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Zobrazit p\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek na Instagramu<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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P\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek sd\u00edlen\u00fd Paris-Nice (@parisnicecourse)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n