Visma-Lease a Bike have announced that Jonas Vingegaard will not be taking the start of the upcoming Volta a Catalunya (March 24-30), with the Dane instead taking time to recover from a crash at Paris-Nice.
Vingegaard pulled out of Paris-Nice ahead of the sixth stage after crashing on the fifth stage, a hilltop finish at La Côte-Saint-André. He suffered a hand contusion as well as dizziness and pain in his face but went on to finish the stage.
However, his injuries now mean that he won’t be taking part in Catalunya, Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed on Wednesday morning.
“Jonas Vingegaard has not yet recovered sufficiently from his crash in Paris-Nice. Therefore, he will not start in the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. We wish him a speedy recovery!” the team wrote in a statement on social media.
Instead, the Dutch squad will be led by Simon Yates and Sepp Kuss. The pair will be joined for the week-long stage race by Steven Kruijswijk, Wilco Kelderman, Bart Lemmen, Matthew Brennan and Menno Huising.
The question for Vingegaard now is where his next race will be. His run-up to a tilt at a third Tour de France title was set to include just two more races – Catalunya and the Critérium du Dauphiné (June 8-15), with a holiday and altitude camp coming between the pair of races.
Previous campaigns have seen him take on Itzulia Basque Country in April before returning for the Dauphiné and Tour, though how willing he would be to return to the race, the site of his life-threatening crash last spring, is questionable.
In the meantime, Yates and Kuss will lead Visma against several other top GC contenders at Catalunya, where summit finishes at La Molina, Montserrat Mil·lenari, and Queralt are set to decide the champion.
Joining the two leaders on the provisional startlist for the 104th edition of the race are UAE Team Emirates-XRG duo Adam Yates and Juan Ayuso, Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Enric Mas (Movistar), Ineos Grenadiers Geraint Thomas pairing Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), and Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), among others.
