Jonas Vingegaard’s TRAINING To DESTROY Tadej Pogačar

Jonas Vingegaard’s TRAINING To DESTROY Tadej Pogačar

This year’s Tour de France was one of the most exciting in history, and for the longest time, it looked like the race would be decided in the final stages, with the difference between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar being so little. But what does it take to knock Tadej Pogačar out of the park in Tour de France? And what training did Jonas Vingegaard have to undergo to beat him?

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This year’s Tour de France was one of the most exciting in history, and for the longest time, it looked like the race would be decided in the final stages, with the difference between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar being so little.

But it soon became evident that Jonas is the strongest rider out of the two, especially after his insane time trial performance that crushed Pogačar’s yellow jersey dream for the season. But what does it take to knock Tadej Pogačar out of the park in Tour de France?

And what training did Jonas Vingegaard have to undergo to beat him? See, one would think there are some secret strategies and training plans going on behind the scenes in Jumbo-Visma, but as you’ll learn in this video, the principles of Vingegaard’s

Training were pretty simple, yet very effective, and something you can definitely do yourself. The head of performance in the team said that there are three main things they had to focus on to prepare Jonas for the challenge. And those are consistency, knowing the opponent and training strengths rather than weaknesses.

But there was a little something else that isn’t as frequently used in training programs, and it’s availability. This means they made sure Jonas was always healthy and fit, in every single race he entered. In fact, they focused on it so much they even cut some races from the calendar, just to

Make sure Jonas was always above 100 percent. What Jumbo-Visma also had though, was a data set that included two stages on which Jonas was able to drop Pogačar back in 2022. With that information, they had the strength of understanding how they might be able to

Replicate the success and leave him in the dust again. It helped them understand what exactly they had to do in the season, and they did it. In fact, if only the team decided so, Jonas could have pulled a Tour-Vuelta double special,

And become the first rider after Chris Froome back in 2017 to achieve it. But of course, none of this would be possible if his training didn’t focus on his biggest strengths and not his weaknesses. See, Vingegaard’s coach didn’t tweak his Tour de France training plan to match Pogačar’s

Shifty accelerations, even though at times, it looked like he was more ready for those than ever. Instead, they focused on developing his diesel-powered machine, which was exactly what cracked Pogačar on Granon back in 2022 and on the Col de la Loze in 2023.

The team was well aware about Vingegaard’s biggest strength, which is the long climbs, and they decided to make the best of it. But it isn’t as simple as it all sounds. See, the top qualities of Pogačar are the exact opposite of those that Vingegaard possesses.

If you train for explosiveness a lot, like Pogačar likely does besides other things, you lose some length in your duration. And of course, the opposite is true as well. If you train for the long climbs, you likely won’t be that explosive while sprinting or attacking.

And Jumbo-Visma knew that very well, and figured out that finding the right balance between the two, with a little more long climb training in there would be the key to beat Pogačar. And when Vingegaard was done with the Tour de France, he faced a completely new challenge,

Returning to the Vuelta a Espana for the first time since 2020, the year of his grand tour debut. This was also his first time entering two grand tours in one season, and his first time racing against a rival who was one of the favorites on paper, Remco Evenepoel.

They only stage-raced together twice before the 2023 Vuelta, but Vingegaard wasn’t as scared of Remco for one simple reason. He has a similar fierce short-duration kick as Pogačar, but everyone knew that in the mountains, Vingegaard clearly had the advantage. And in the end, that was the case, big time.

What his trainer said about the climbing situation is the following: “We looked closely at the power files we had from before of Jonas. Pogačar is a great, great opponent, but we saw that in some occasions, Jonas can be a better climber. And that we should try to create those occasions again.

And that’s what we wanted to do at the Tour de France.” And when it came to beating Remco in the Vuelta situation, they didn’t really have a lot of data to back their decisions. What they did have though, is the benefit of Primož Roglič’s experience dealing

With the Soudal Quick-Step star at the Vuelta the previous year, and they used that to forge a decision. And that seems to have worked as well, as Remco was clearly beaten, even though his trainer said: “It is realistic that Vingegaard will reach the same level in the Vuelta, but

There is a greater risk factor. We believe in targeted preparation and that is why we do this very meticulously towards the Tour. For the Vuelta this is a bit more uncertainty, because the preparation time for the race is simply shorter.”

However, there’s one more thing that his trainer thinks made all the difference, and was the biggest change from past years. There was simply a lot more consistency in Vingegaard’s training. See, Jonas faced a whirlwind turnaround when the Tour de France ended on July 23rd and the team time trial in Barcelona was approaching.

He chose to spend those five weeks with his family at home, but that’s understandable, when the other option was breathing the thin air of Tignes, the team’s chosen summer altitude retreat. It’s hard to blame him for that though, as riding two grand tours back-to-back doesn’t

Only require a lot of resting periods, but also plenty of careful fatigue and fitness management. Too much load in a short period of time can easily cause a rider to completely burn out before seeing the next start line. Despite that though, it’s important to note that Jumbo-Visma’s commitment to consistent

Training was the reason Jonas was able to secure the yellow jersey and get back in the saddle within a week, virtually ready for another grand tour. Even his trainer says he thinks consistency was key to his success this cycling season.

See, Vingegaard only raced a mere 26 times before the Tour de France started. We cannot really compare that to Pogačar this year, since his injury caused him to skip way more races than he would like, but we can compare it to Adam Yates for example.

Before putting on the yellow jersey in Bilbao, he had 34 race days, which was 8 more than Vingegaard, and likely a similar number to what Pogačar’s would look like if that unfortunate injury wouldn’t have happened. And the fact that Vingegaard’s racing schedule was severely cut allowed him to complete the

Tour de France focused training that was carefully crafted by Jumbo-Visma. And most likely, this was the biggest reason for his 7 minutes and 29 seconds long winning margin in Paris this year. But there’s one more reason they did this. His trainer said that they also did all that because of Vingegaard’s past problems.

He said: “Jonas used to have problems with his tendons and was missing training, and in 2021, he suffered badly with COVID and lost a lot of time. We wanted to rule out all those factors so he could be totally consistent this year, and we managed that very well.

We paid a lot of attention to his physical preparedness so that he was always doing his exercises, his recovery, his nutrition, all of it 100 percent right.” Jonas didn’t race much, but that isn’t always a bad thing. It helped him to stay consistent literally the whole way through the season, with all

His exercises and training. And the entire Jumbo-Visma team, together with his personal coach, believe that this was essential for the Tour victory. What all this caused though, was interesting. When people noticed his consistency, everyone started comparing him and guessing whether he is going to follow Chris Froome’s footsteps.

And while he didn’t successfully double the victory at the Tour de France with he final red jersey ad the Vuelta a Espana this season, he could have easily done it, if the victory wasn’t given to Sepp Kuss, who deserved it as well. Primož Roglič came close to that achievement back in 2020.

Pogačar hasn’t tried it yet, but could perhaps pull it off. However, it is true that in the modern era, where close to every kilometer of every race is raced in the red zone and the competition is immense, only few actually think that’s still possible.

Funnily enough, Chris Froome is the only rider to win the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana, since the Vuelta was moved to the late-summer time all the way back in 1995. And with Vingegaard basically showing everyone that he’s got the ability to do it fairly

Easily, Jumbo-Visma, his personal coach and Jonas himself now have a blueprint to follow through the entire 2024 and beyond.