Vingegaard wins Tour de France for the second time, Boras Meeus the final stage
Jonas Vingegaard was the first Dane to win the Tour de France for the second time.
The 26-year-old reached the finish of the final stage in Paris with the peloton. After around 3400 kilometres and 21 stages, Vingegaard had a lead of several minutes over the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar. Vingegaard had celebrated his first Tour victory last year. The last stage was won by the Belgian Jordi Meeus from the German team Bora-hansgrohe.
"Of course I'm very happy to have won the Tour de France for the second time. It was my big goal this year," said Vingegaard. He pulled out the decisive lead in the individual time trial on Tuesday and a day later on the queen stage to Courchevel. Until then it was a duel for seconds with Pogacar.
"Incredible fight between me and Tadej"
"It was an incredible battle between me and Tadej this year. It was really hard to break him down," said Vingegaard. However, his rival saw Vingegaard's Tour victory primarily as a result of his own weakness on the Courchevel stage, when he lost almost six minutes. "I cracked myself. Nobody else did. It was me," said Pogacar about his "worst performance of all". In addition, the Slovenian was affected by a scaphoid fracture suffered in the spring and was unable to prepare ideally for the Tour.
Vingegaard received a phone call from the Danish Crown Prince Frederik on Saturday evening after the penultimate stage. The professional cyclist will be received in Copenhagen on Wednesday. He will be travelling from Kastrup Airport to the town hall of the Danish capital in a convertible. There, Vingegaard will appear on the balcony. As in the previous year, tens of thousands are expected on the town hall square.
A day later, Vingegaard's journey continues to his home town of Glyngøre on the Danish mainland. Last year, 20,000 people welcomed him there. Preparations for this year's festival have been underway for months.
Copyright 2023, dpa (www.dpa.de). All rights reserved
