It’s taken two weeks, there’s been a fair bit of shadow boxing, the pink jersey did a few rounds before landing on an unexpected placeholder, crashes and illnesses have plagued many as have sub-par performances, and prolificness from expected (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and unexpected sources (XDS-Astana) have lit up the race, but finally the 2026 Giro d’Italia has Jonas Vingegaard at the very top of the hierarchy. Now try and take it off him.
Rather than going for the Tadej Pogačar 2024 approach and taking the maglia rosa as early as possible before embarking on a stage hunting spree that can be best described as not letting anyone else play, Vingegaard, in his debut Giro campaign, has opted for a more measured line of attack – still showing his absolute superiority on the stages that matter (winning the summit finishes on stages seven and nine) but being more than content to let Afonso Eulálio of Bahrain-Victorious sit at the top of the pile and even extend his advantage on occasions.
That all changed on stage 14, when the Giro entered the big boy mountains for the first time, terrain where the Dane most thrives and excels. The Aosta Valley became his playground. Two first category climbs and a second and third category climb came before the big one, a 16.6km slog up to the ski station of Pila. Legs were weary due to the successive climbs and the summer-like conditions, and Vingegaard punished them all.
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His race-winning attack was straight out of his tried-and-tested playbook, launching a fierce move with 4.6km to go. But just because you’ve seen it before, it doesn’t mean you can stop it. Not this competition, anyway. Felix Gall, Thymen Arensman and the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe pair of Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari are elite climbers, but they’re not in the same orbit as Vingegaard. Only Pogačar is, and perhaps Paul Seixas. Neither are here. Both await him at the forthcoming Tour de France. What a tantalising thought.
When Vingegaard went on the slopes to Pila, there was no response. No one could follow the Visma-lease a Bike rider. He marched into the distance, and away he went. There was a sense that he had held back a bit on the Blockhaus and Corno alle Scale climbs last week, and he admitted to being a little run down after his mediocre (by his standards) time trial on stage 10, but here there was no messing around. No mercy shown to anyone else. Vingegaard was bold, clinical, and definitive. It was time to take the race lead once and for all.
Gall was his closest challenger once again, but even he was 49 seconds in arrears. Jai Hindley was next, 59 seconds back. Only four of the other riders finished within two minutes of him – and one was his 23-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Davide Piganzolo. The latter rebuffed the plaudits about his performance – “I was suffering like a pig,” he so eloquently described – and instead heaped all the praise on his teammate. “Jonas is, of course, a machine,” he said. Quite. Certainly the best human in the race.
It means after two-thirds of the race, Vingegaard has an advantage of 2:26 to Eulálio who limited his losses and can now be considered a genuine podium contender. Gall (2:50 back) jumped over Arensman into third.
Vingegaard now has three stage wins, but this was the first time he has really stamped his authority on the race. It’s his to lose now. “This one [stage victory] is the one I’ll remember the most,” he smiled at the finish line. His intent was clear from the beginning, as though a big breakaway group went up the road early on, they were never given a big lead, with Visma working at the front all afternoon to tee their leader up for the stage victory.
“Today we made a plan from the start with the team,” Vingegaard continued. “We wanted to control the race and that’s what my teammates did. They did an incredible job the whole day. It was impressive how they rode. I’m so proud of my teammates and so proud I can pay them back. It’s a super nice win. It’ll be very special for me having the pink jersey going into Milan tomorrow.”
Whether or not Vingegaard is or isn’t operating at 100% is something we won’t find out for definite until July’s Tour de France when the Dane aims to replicate Pogačar’s success from 2024 in completing the Giro-Tour double. To beat Pogačar he will have to be better than he was in the last two Tours, and though it’s difficult to really assess the duo’s condition when they’re not racing together, Vingegaard does look faster, sharper and more energised than at any point since his last Tour win in 2023.
“Since last year’s Vuelta it’s been a big dream of his to take pink and to win here, so now that he’s achieved that it’s something really special,” Visma DS Marc Reef said. “There’s so much history with the pink jersey and to have him wearing it is really good.” There are still seven stages left of this year’s Giro, and anything can happen, but if he avoids misfortune and accidents, Vingegaard will stay in pink all the way to Rome. It’s difficult to see how any of his competitors could possibly mount a comeback to rival that of Simon Yates’s from 12 months ago.
