The incident happened four years ago
Tour dominator Vingegaard admits missing doping test
November 23, 2023, 4:00 p.m
Athletes have reporting obligations and must be available daily for doping controls. If you miss several tests, you risk being banned. Even cyclist Vingegaard was not reached by inspectors. Shortly afterwards all was right with the world again. The Dane assures that he has always been and still is clean.
Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has reported missing a doping test at the start of his professional career. The doorbell didn’t work and he left his cell phone in the kitchen. The Danish professional cyclist could no longer determine the exact time of the incident, but believes it was in 2019. But it’s “definitely something I think about afterwards to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” Vingegaard told the Danish daily Ekstra Bladet. “Of course that’s not cool. But then they came two days later.”
According to the regulations, a single missed doping control does not result in any consequences, and the case should now have expired. “I understand that it is difficult to trust cycling with the past. But today everyone is different than they were 20 years ago,” emphasized the Tour de France winner of 2022 and 2023.
The cyclist’s greatest fear
Vingegaard assured that he had achieved his successes cleanly. He is also convinced of the rest of the peloton. “Since I can win the Tour de France twice without taking anything, I also believe that everyone else won’t take anything either,” said Vingegaard, who pointed to 60 to 70 doping tests in 2023.
Vingegaard also addressed his teammate Michel Heßmann’s positive doping test. The German tested positive for a diuretic during a training check in Germany on June 14th and has to fear a multi-year ban.
His lawyer speaks of possible contamination. “I don’t know how it got into his body. But I think every cyclist’s biggest fear is that you get it through food or something you eat and that way you test positive without that they wanted to cheat,” said Vingegaard.