Twice Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard will not compete in next month’s World Championships and has instead decided to focus on the European Championships, the Visma–Lease a Bike rider said.
The 28-year-old Dane, who finished second to Slovenian Tadej Pogacar in the last two editions of the Tour, will next be in action at the Vuelta a Espana, where he is the favourite after Pogacar decided to skip the event to rest.
“No, actually, yeah, we decided not to go to the Worlds. It doesn’t really fit into the plans,” Vingegaard told reporters at his Vuelta press conference on Thursday.
“We have decided, though, that we want to go for the Europeans instead. Of course, you need to be really fresh and everything to go to the World Championships this year, it really requires a lot from the rider who’s participating.
“With not knowing how I’m going to come out of this Vuelta, and with how I experience it now, then we decided that it was better to not do it and then say, ‘I still want to do the European Championships and that I can do that instead’, then I’ll have some time after the Vuelta to focus on that.”
The 21-stage Vuelta runs from August 23 to September 14.
The World Championships are being held in Kigali, Rwanda, from September 21-28, the first time the event has been staged in Africa.
The European Championships will take place in France from October 1-5.
