Jonas Vingegaard’s coach says the Tour de France champion is on track in his return from injury and could join a Visma-Lease a Bike training camp in Tignes next month.
Vingegaard suffered horrific injuries - including a punctured lung, fractured ribs and collarbone - in a high speed crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April and has only just been able to begin riding his bike outside once again.
Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Tim Heemskerk praised Vingegaard’s mental and physical strength, and said his rider was firmly on track to increase his training load as he aims to be on the Tour start line in Florence on 29 June.
"We're dealing with a two-time Tour de France champion," Heemskerk said. "We know these guys are mentally really tough but also can recover really fast. At the time of crashing these guys are already really fit, they're not the average athlete."
Vingegaard is currently at home in Denmark and is continuing to gradually increase his outdoor riding. Heemskerk said he was encouraged by the communication he’d received from Vingegaard’s medical team, including physiotherapists but that he was prepared to "put the brakes on" should the 27-year-old need to pause his return to training.
"Every time the messages we've got are that he's improving so fast," he explained. "That's the same for every time there's been something going on in the last six years when I was working with him.
"Every day we've been keeping in touch with each other and every day it's going in the direction of maybe doing some normal training again in just a matter of time."
Heemskerk pointed out that the nature of Vingegaard’s injuries inevitably mean that his return to fitness won’t always be plain sailing.
"You have to remember with this that it's not always going to be a straight line," he said. "Maybe some days things will not go in the direction we want. But so far, it looks like every day is going towards improvement.
"But you cannot predict tomorrow or the day after, maybe then there is pain or something going on, but at the moment it looks like every day we can add a little bit and every day we're getting closer to getting back on track.
"I'm positive at the moment seeing that every day we can add a little bit to his riding and every day, we get the feedback that this is going in the right direction from the physio working with him in Denmark."
Eight Weeks
With roughly eight weeks until the Florence Grand Départ, Heemskerk's aim is for Vingegaard to gradually increase his training volume with the aim of joining up with his teammates at Visma-Lease a Bike’s final Tour training camp in Tignes.
However, he reiterated the sentiment of Visma CEO Richard Plugge and said that Vingegaard would only travel to Italy if he was fully fit and ready.
He said: "When we really look at how much time we have till the start of the Tour, let's say it's eight weeks, then we know that Jonas is at the best place at the moment to build base levels, to increase training volume, to maybe start doing some intervals soon and to continue working with the physio in Denmark.
"But then at one point, you know that like every year, Denmark is not the place to prepare for the Tour. So you have to go in the future, when things are going in the right direction, you have to go ride long climbs.
"Hopefully, he'll be able to join a part of the preparation with all the other riders. We have a team going now to Sierra Nevada preparing and then that team will also go to the Criterium du Dauphine and then to Tignes."
"I really hope we will improve every day so that he's able to join the team in Tignes and be part of a group," he added. "We'll continue monitoring every day, I think that's the most important thing now and I know it will be really important in the next two, three weeks. I'm positive about these things."
Visma already confirmed that Vingegaard won’t ride the Critérium du Dauphiné, a race he won last year, in early June. But Heemskerk suggested that could change depending on how the next weeks play out.
"Maybe it's just training all the way and there might be no race,” he said. “But it will depend also on what the feedback from Jonas will be in the next two to three weeks.
"So at the moment, my thoughts are just about tomorrow and this next little training block... I think in two weeks from now we will have a really, really better view of where we are at to enable us to predict a programme.
"At the moment, I'm just thinking about the fact that we just have eight weeks for training time."
