Opinion: Jumbo-Visma bury 2020 demons with emphatic one-two for Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert

Wout van Aert watched his team leader defend the yellow jersey in a time trial in the penultimate day of the Tour with far more relish than he did two years ago at La Planche des Belles Filles. It certainly helped that Tadej Pogacar had a far larger deficit to close than the 57 seconds he overturned to reel in Primoz Roglic back in 2020 on what was the darkest day in Jumbo-Visma’s history – a day which spawned the now ubiquitous meme of Tom Dumoulin and a masked Van Aert watching on, helpless and in horror, as the Slovenian debutant pulled the rug from under his compatriot’s feet.

Ad/> If Roglic crashing out of the 2021 Tour prolonged the pain for Jumbo-Visma, that race also sowed the seeds of the team’s greatest moment: Jonas Vingegaard riding to second place in his debut Tour in Roglic’s absence gave a glimmer of what was to come this July. Tour de France‘Just shows how close we are!' – Vingegaard on ‘brother’ Van Aert’s tearsAN HOUR AGO But no one could have imagined retribution and redemption to have come so emphatically and so sweetly as it has.

Truth be told, Vingegaard had already wrapped up the Tour long before he rolled down the ramp en route to Rocamadour – his Van Aert-powered win at Hautacam putting the final nail in Pogacar’s coffin and ensuring that, even with a barnstorming ride, the 23-year-old Slovenian would not be able to turn the tables on Jumbo-Visma at the eleventh hour again. Vingegaard set to win maiden Tour as Van Aert claims stunning Stage 20 TT win In fact, only Vingegaard could stop Vingegaard from becoming the first Danish rider to win the Tour since Bjarne Riis in 1996 – and therefore the first Dane, let’s be honest, to win the world’s biggest bike race fair and square.