The Jumbo Visma sporting director has revealed the Danish wonderkid struggled to recover from his Tour de France triumph.
The Dane Jonas Vingegaard has experienced “difficult moments“After his Tour de France victory, said the sports director of his Jumbo Visma training on Thursday.
The 25-year-old rider, who was not at the start of the Tour of Denmark on Tuesday and will be absent from the next road world championships, to the chagrin of his fans and the federation, has kept a low profile since his triumphant welcome in Copenhagen a few days later. his victory.
“I understand that viewers want to see Jonas, and I spoke to him about it yesterday. But he had very difficult moments after the TourFrans Maassen told the daily Ekstra Bladet.
Read alsoTour de France: Vingegaard, the coronation of a team and a country
“We would have liked to show it in this race, but we also have to understand that it was difficult to win the Tour and with everything that followed“, he explained.
In addition, his presence at the start of the Danish competition would have increased the pressure around Vingegaard, he argued. The climber has not publicly commented on his absence.
“It’s one thing to be physically ready, but you also have to be mentally ready.“, had noted for his part a manager of the Tour of Denmark, Frank Hyldgaard, with the local press agency Ritzau.
After having “invested a lot“in the Big Loop, “there is no doubt that he is well done now“, abounded the cyclist of Quickstep, the Dane Michael Mørkøv in the daily Ekstra Bladet.
For nearly a year, the question of the mental health of high-level athletes, subjected to extreme stress, has gradually come out of the unsaid and the psychological dimension is increasingly taken into account.
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