Vingegaard: "I'd Rather Win the Giro Than the Tour" — Dane Reveals True Ambition for Historic 2026 Double
Jonas Vingegaard has made a statement that would have been unthinkable from any Tour de France contender a generation ago. Speaking at the Saitama Criterium in Japan, the two-time Tour champion declared: "I'd rather win the Giro d'Italia than the Tour de France for 2026." It is a remark that simultaneously reveals the depth of his ambition and the calculated logic of a rider who understands that the greatest legacy is built not by repeating the same victory, but by conquering new territory.
The reasoning is straightforward. Vingegaard has won the Tour de France twice — in 2022 and 2023 — and his rivalry with Tadej Pogacar at cycling's biggest race is already the defining contest of the modern era. But the Giro d'Italia is the one Grand Tour the Dane has never ridden. Winning it would complete his Grand Tour set, making him only the eighth rider in history to have won all three, following in the footsteps of legends such as Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Alberto Contador. That is the prize Vingegaard is chasing in 2026 — not just another Tour podium, but a place among the absolute greatest.
His Visma-Lease a Bike team have built the entire season around this ambition. The 2026 programme was designed with surgical precision: the UAE Tour in February for early racing sharpness, Paris-Nice in March for stage race intensity, and the Volta a Catalunya for altitude stimulus and final competitive preparation. Vingegaard won both Paris-Nice and Catalunya, the latter in emphatic style with two stage victories and a decisive mountain attack that left Remco Evenepoel and the Red Bull-Bora squad in his wake. The form is undeniable.
"We are convinced that racing the Giro d'Italia will benefit his level in the Tour de France," Visma sporting director Merijn Zeeman said when confirming the double programme. The logic follows the model established by riders like Pogacar — who completed the Giro-Tour double in 2024 — and suggests that three weeks of Grand Tour racing at the highest level serves as the ultimate preparation for July. If Vingegaard can win in Italy and arrive at the Tour with a maglia rosa in his collection, the psychological advantage alone could prove decisive.
The Giro field will test him severely. João Almeida — who finished second in the 2024 Giro riding in support of Pogacar — leads UAE Team Emirates-XRG's challenge as the team's designated GC leader. Giulio Pellizzari, the emerging Italian talent, will carry home hopes, while Richard Carapaz brings the experience of a former Giro champion. The route, starting in Bulgaria on May 8 and finishing in Rome on May 31, features enough high mountain stages to suit Vingegaard's climbing supremacy but also enough transitional days to demand tactical vigilance.
Former Tour champion Jens Voigt has been characteristically blunt in his assessment. "The Giro d'Italia is a luxury training camp for Jonas," Voigt said. "He will go there, he will race hard, and he will come out the other side an even stronger rider for the Tour de France. This is the right decision." It is a view shared by much of the peloton: Vingegaard at the Giro is not a rider spreading himself thin, but a champion seeking the optimal path to peak form.
The broader significance of Vingegaard's declaration should not be underestimated. For decades, the Tour de France has held such gravitational pull that even suggesting another Grand Tour might matter more was considered heretical. Pogacar's 2024 double began to shift that perception. Now Vingegaard — by explicitly prioritising the Giro — is completing the revolution. The three Grand Tours are converging in prestige, and the sport is richer for it.
Vingegaard now enters his final altitude training block before heading to Bulgaria for the Grande Partenza. After a spring that has confirmed him as the most consistent stage racer in the world — four stage race victories in the past 12 months — the question is not whether he has the legs, but whether anyone in the Giro field has the answers. If the form he displayed in Catalunya is any guide, the maglia rosa is his to lose.