"Three Evenings In The Maglia Rosa, A Defended Naples Transition, And A Closing Pre-Blockhaus Brief That Reads As The Cleanest First-Mountain-Summit Reference We Could Have Asked For" — Vingegaard's Thursday-Evening Press Conference From The Naples Lungomare Media Centre
Thursday late evening Naples. Ninety minutes after the closing Caracciolo finish-line cool-down and three-and-a-half hours from the closing 22:00 Visma-Lease a Bike team-bus departure to the Castel dell'Ovo media room, Jonas Vingegaard opens his closing Thursday-evening press conference defending a third consecutive evening in the maglia rosa across the cleanest pre-first-mountain-summit reference any Visma-Lease a Bike Giro brief has produced.
The Dane finished safely in the closing front group on the Naples Lungomare Caracciolo behind Jonathan Milan's third sprint victory of the corsa rosa, preserving the closing 17-second overall margin over Giulio Pellizzari intact through a defensively executed Campania-corridor transition. The closing pre-Blockhaus maglia rosa outright contracts to 4/5 ahead of Friday's 244-kilometre first mountain-summit reference.
"Three evenings in the maglia rosa, a defended Naples transition, and a closing pre-Blockhaus brief that reads as the cleanest first-mountain-summit reference we could have asked for," Vingegaard said in his opening remarks from the closing Castel dell'Ovo media-room platform. "The team controlled every kilometre out of Matera. Wilco, Sepp, the lead-out wheels through the closing twenty kilometres on the Caracciolo — that is exactly the platform from which we want to ride into Blockhaus tomorrow."
The closing 13.6-kilometre 8.4% Blockhaus ramp is the first proper mountain-summit reference of the 2026 corsa rosa and is forecast to compress the closing GC frame inside a ninety-second window across the closing five-kilometre final segment. The Dane closed the closing pre-Tour Sierra Nevada altitude block on a 6.34W/kg twenty-minute peak reference at the back end of April, with the closing pre-Giro Tirreno-Adriatico build producing the cleanest single-rider mountain output any Visma-Lease a Bike pre-Grand-Tour reference has produced across the closing post-Vuelta reset.
"We do not over-think tomorrow," Vingegaard continued. "It is the first proper mountain. Blockhaus is hard, the closing five kilometres are very hard, but we have raced these gradients many times and the legs are where I want them to be. Egan will be dangerous, Giulio is racing on home roads, Ben will not sit. We expect the move from inside the final five kilometres and we will be ready."
The closing pre-stage market opens at Vingegaard 4/5, Pellizzari 6/1, Bernal 8/1, Healy 12/1 and Antonio Tiberi 14/1 across a closing 244-kilometre Naples-to-Abruzzo Campania-to-Abruzzo transition that includes a closing pre-Blockhaus 8.9-kilometre 6.2% Passo Lanciano ramp inside the closing 35-kilometre frame. The closing maglia rosa overall outright through the closing Sicily transfer reads at Vingegaard 4/9 across the closing 21-stage frame.
Asked about the closing post-Blockhaus Sicily transfer block and the closing 22-kilometre individual time trial on Stage 9, Vingegaard closed the closing press conference with the cleanest pre-mountain signal Visma-Lease a Bike have produced across the closing 2026 corsa rosa: "We close one mountain at a time. Tomorrow is Blockhaus. After Blockhaus, we will know much more about the rest of the race. The closing twenty-one-day frame is long, and we ride one mountain at a time." Departure for the closing Friday morning team breakfast at the Romeo Hotel Naples is set for 06:45.