SAN BENEDETTO DEL TRONTO, Italy (AP) — Two-time defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard secured overall victory in the weeklong Tirreno-Adriatico race on Sunday after winning the two big climbing stages.
Showing strong early season form, the Danish rider with the Visma team has now won both races he’s entered in 2024, after also taking the overall title and winning three of the four stages in the Gran Camino in Spain last month.
After winning the sea-to-sea race, Vingegaard raised the giant trophy shaped like Neptune’s three-pronged trident.
“Neptune’s trident is one of the best and most iconic trophies in cycling,” Vingegaard said. “It’s perfect for an ex-fisherman like me.”
It was a strong response to Tadej Pogacar’s dominating win in the Strade Bianche last weekend. Pogacar finished second behind Vingegaard at the Tour the last two years after winning cycling’s biggest race in 2020 and 2021. The pair likely won’t race against each other again until this year’s Tour starts in Florence, Italy, on June 29.
While Pogacar has added the Giro d’Italia to his program for this season, Vingegaard is still centering his season around the Tour.
“I like racing in Italy,” Vingegaard said. “I don’t rule out trying to win the Giro in the future.”
Vingegaard finished 1 minute, 24 seconds ahead of Spanish rider Juan Ayuso and 1:52 ahead of Jai Hindley, the 2022 Giro champion from Australia.
Vingegaard won the fifth and sixth stages.
With American rider Matteo Jorgenson winning the Paris-Nice stage race on Sunday, Visma became the first team to win Paris-Nice and the Tirreno-Adriatico in the same year.
Italian rider Jonathan Milan with Lidl-Trek won the seventh and final Tirreno stage in a sprint finish for his second victory of the race after also taking the fourth leg. Alexander Kristoff and Davide Cimolai finished second and third, respectively.
Richard Carapaz, the Ecuadorean who won the 2019 Giro and gold at the Tokyo Olympics, abandoned the race after a fall.
The next major race is the Milan-San Remo next Saturday, although Vingegaard does not plan to enter the single-day classic.
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