A little over a month after his crash at the Itzulia Basque Country left him with several injuries, Jonas Vingegaard is back to riding outside.
“It is really nice to finally be able to ride like normal again and finally to be able to ride on the road is really amazing,” Vingegaard said in a video posted to Visma-Lease a Bike’s Instagram account. “I’m really looking forward to taking the next steps as well.”
The defending Tour de France champion left the Itzulia Basque Country in an ambulance after the pileup on April 4 that also affected other big names, including Remco Evenepoel, Primož Roglič and Jay Vine. Vingegaard was later diagnosed with a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs, and a pneumothorax.
Those injuries required two separate surgeries, keeping Vingegaard hospitalized in Spain for a period of days until he was able to head home on April 16. He has continued to recover since then, and now, at last, he is back on the bike outside.
Whether Vingegaard will be fit to start the Tour, a race he has now won twice, remains a big question mark, but it is a goal for both rider and team. Visma-Lease a Bike’s sports director Merijn Zeeman said last week that Vingegaard was “busy every day with his rehabilitation” and that the squad would “keep open the possibility” of him riding the Tour this year. Vingegaard confirmed that same sentiment on Tuesday.
“I still have some things to recover from but it’s going better and better,” Vingegaard said. “Of course, I hope to be there at the start of the Tour de France. We don’t know exactly how my shape and how my recovery will go but I will do everything I can to get there in my top shape.”
The 27-year-old Dane has a little over seven weeks to achieve that goal. The Tour de France rolls out from Florence, Italy, on June 29.
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