Winds touching 80kph and incessant torrential rain on the final day of O Gran Camiño could not stop Jonas Vingegaard’s relentless run of triumphs in his first race of the 2024 season, as the Dane made light of yet more atrocious weather conditions to claim a third solo stage victory and seal the overall win for a second straight year.
Watched by a crowd of umbrella-wielding fans as trees all but buckled in the gale and miniature rivers streamed down each side of the finish line crash barriers, Vingegaard seemed oblivious to the conditions at the Monte Aloia summit, attacking late on a shortened stage to win by 16 seconds from Lenny Martínez (Groupama-FDJ), with Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) third at 45 seconds.
“You didn’t see, like, anything?” Vingegaard asked reporters somewhat incredulously when told that the exceptionally adverse meteorology had not only forced organisers to remove one of the two planned ascents of the final climb, but also prevented anything but fixed finish line TV cameras from operating normally.
After two wins in the two previous days, in any case, anything but a Vingegaard victory would have been a major surprise, and the Dane buttresed his already healthy advantage to a final total of 1:55 on Martínez and 2:11 on Egan Bernal.
The Colombian once again showed that even in the toughest of weather conditions at O Gran Camiño, he has been making steady progress back towards the top of the sport.
“It was a very wet day, I can tell you that,” Vingegaard told reporters in response to the media's plea for information about the completely untelevised stage. “On the last climb we caught the last breakaway guys and we wanted to go for the stage win.
“Until three kilometres to go we were all together and then it split up, at one point it was a good moment for me to attack and I tried. Luckily no-one could follow and from there, it was just a question of going to the finish.”
Vingegaard said he did not think it had been his hardest day on the bike, saying that Friday’s stage was more difficult due to the low temperatures. “That was worse, and then of course last year here with the snow [on stage 1, which was suspended] was even worse than that,” he said.
“Today was just super-super wet from the start, not really cold but I think if we had had to go down from here at the summit, probably it would have been.
“It was also really windy with some really strong gusts so it was pretty dangerous with that. In some places it looked like the trees were falling halfway over the road. I’ve done worse, but if I’d done an extra lap maybe I would have a different answer.”
Given those circumstances, it almost went without saying that Vingegaard felt that it had been “the best decision” to remove one circuit of the stage – “so we could still go to the finish line and I think everyone was happy.”
He continued: “It’s unfortunate that it had to happen but I think it’s mostly unfortunate for the race, because now they’ve had bad weather for a second year in a row. It would have been nice if it would have been nice weather and we could do the whole race.”
After his runaway success in Galicia, Vingegaard’s next race is Tirreno-Adriatico. But just as in 2023, where he also took three stages of O Gran Camiño out of a possible four – with the fourth this year, the opening time trial, partially neutralised this time round because of bad weather – Vingegaard’s opening racing performance in 2024 could not have been more satisfying.
“I’m happy with my shape, and how my team have performed this week, I’m happy to be able to pay them back, it’s a great start to the year,” Vingegaard said.
“I think the legs are good, the shape is good and I’m heading for Tirreno. The most important thing is not to get sick now or do anything stupid in the next week.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly since the weather conditions have been so difficult for two straight years, Vingegaard was a shade non-committal about his return to Galicia in 2025. But the organisers of O Gran Camiño, a race still only in its third year of existence and which has effectively replaced the long-defunct Vuelta a Galicia, will have been delighted to hear that he did not rule it out completely.
“I might come back next year, although I might look at the weather forecast first,” Vingegaard said with a smile. “But then we’ll have to make a plan and we’ll see.”
