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In 2022 and 2023, Jonas Vingegaard took overall victory in the Tour de France, cementing his place as the leading Grand Tour rider in the peloton. However, in 2024, his legendary rival Tadej Pogacar came back with a vengeance, reclaiming the Jaune jersey in what was probably the greatest single season of all time.
Therefore, Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike understands that a big season is needed in 2025 if Pogacar’s dominance is to be overthrown. “Jonas is back in training and doing well,” explains Tim Heemskerk from Visma in an interview with Velo. “We are already preparing for 2025. He is well positioned and confident. He’s already thinking about next year and looking forward to it.”
Although Vingegaard missed a large part of his preparation for the 2024 Tour de France after a bad crash in the Basque Country, Heemskerk and Visma are confident that the Dane, with a good, strong winter in his legs, can stop the seemingly unstoppable Pogacar. “If we start training this early, we can create a really good foundation for next year,” explains Heemskerk. “This is something we really needed. After the crash, a lot was still missing this summer. Jonas trains really well on the bike but also focuses on his strength and conditioning. This means he can get back to normal after losing some muscle mass last year.”
“We can only accept that Pogacar has raised the bar this year. It’s a big, big advantage that we were able to start early with Jonas. We need that if we want to continue and close the gap to Pogacar,” the coach continued. “We can’t sit back and say that Jonas Pogacar could have beaten this year with the right preparation and without losing time due to the crash. We have to evaluate and check everything to beat him. It’s about next week, winter, preseason. Everything until the tour. We know we have a very big task ahead of us.”
As already mentioned, there is also great optimism. “Jonas is doing well mentally and physically,” says Heemskerk. “It’s going very well so far. Our biggest problem right now is preventing him from being too good too soon. That can happen with guys that talented.”
“We now have time to really work on the weaknesses. His strength and explosiveness. He lost part of it in his accident,” concludes Heemskerk. “Every week things are looking better. Everything will be the way it was. And then we have to take the next step to remain competitive.”
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