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Visma-Lease a Bike have reminded amateur cyclists of the dangers of interacting with professional riders on the road following the revelation that Jonas Vingegaard crashed on Monday after being tailed by a fan during a descent near Málaga, Spain.
“Jonas Vingegaard crashed during training on Monday. Fortunately, he is OK and did not sustain any serious injuries,” read a team statement. “In general, as a team we would like to urge fans on bikes to always put safety first. For both your own and others’ wellbeing, please allow riders to train and give them as much space and peace as possible.”
Vingegaard’s crash came to light after amateur cyclist Pedro García Fernández posted on his Strava account that he had followed the Dane, and also posted pictures of his own descent behind the 29-year-old. Fernández wrote that Vingegaard had “crashed while trying to drop me on the descent of Fuente la Reina” and, after stopping to check on the two-time Tour de France champion, said that Vingegaard “got angry with me for following him down the hill”.
Fernández said in his post: “You can be a professional, but you can also be humble. He was going fast to drop me and ended up on the ground. I don’t make a living from this, and I’m just an amateur like most people, so I don’t understand his anger as a professional about it.”
Another amateur cyclist claimed to be a witness to the aftermath of the crash. A Strava user named S.Enduro, commenting on Fernández’s post, claimed that he had found Vingegaard with a bleeding face on the side of the road.
“You both passed me coming down, and as I was almost at the last bend, I found Jonas by the guardrail, his face bleeding in two places,” read the comment. “He must have hit it hard to drag his face along the ground. I stopped too and asked him if he needed help, and he told me no, to go away, very angry. Now I understand.
“It’s clear he’s the professional and responsible for how he goes up or down, but I also think that people like him, who are professionals and have so much at stake, should be given their space and respected. They risk their lives, their salaries, and the livelihoods of many people around them. It seems to me he felt a bit pressured and went down faster than he should have on a road he doesn’t know well.”
Incidents involving professional riders and amateur cyclists are common, especially in an age where amateurs attempt to film video content on the road. Last week, Vingegaard was seen on the road warning amateur cyclist Artem Shcherbyna about a blind corner on a two-way road as Shcherbyna tried to take a video of the Visma-Lease a Bike rider in training. Mathieu van der Poel, another huge name in cycling, narrowly avoided a nasty crash in December after agreeing to a sprint race with amateur Anatole Leboucher.
Despite his crash, Vingegaard seems likely to recover for his season opener at the UAE Tour in mid-February. Vingegaard has already confirmed that he will race at this year’s Giro d’Italia in May for the first time in his career, as the Dane – winner of the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023 and Vuelta a España champion last year – aims to become the first cyclist to win a career Grand Tour hat-trick since Chris Froome completed the feat in 2018.
