Dane Jonas Vingegaard, winner of the 2022 Tour de France, has given up participating in the 2023 Road Cycling World Championships which will take place in Glasgow in early August, his federation announced on Monday. “Vingegaard is not in the team because he said the World Championships were not possible for him because of his racing program after the Tour,” coach Anders Lund told TV2 television, after having unveiled a first list of four selected.
Denmark will be represented in the online race scheduled for August 6 by Mads Pedersen, Mattias Skjelmose Jensen, Kasper Asgreen and Soren Kragh Andersen. Four other runners will join them. “The Danish national team will look great. I have no doubt about it,” Anders Lund said.
Asked about the absence of Vingegaard at the Worlds, for the second consecutive year, the coach said to take “it very calmly”. “And I understand that Jonas is clearly focused on the Tour de France at the moment, and that’s what matters to him,” he told TV2. The climber from the Jumbo-Visma formation, 26 and the second Dane to win the Grande Boucle after Bjarne Riis in 1996, is one of the favorites for the Tour de France 2023, which will start on Saturday in Bilbao.