FILE PHOTO: Cycling - Tour de France - Stage 21 - Saint-Quentin-En-Yvelines to Paris Champs-Elysees - France - July 23, 2023 Team Jumbo–Visma's Jonas Vingegaard lifts his bike as he celebrates winning the Tour de France Pool via REUTERS/Marco Bertorello/File Photo
(Reuters) - Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard is recovering well from a punctured lung and broken collarbone but must be 100% fit to take part in this year's race, insists his Visma-Lease a Bike team manager.
The Danish rider, winner of the last two editions of the Tour de France, has not raced since being involved in a high-speed crash in the Itzulia Basque Country last month.
Vingegaard was seen training in Mallorca this week, but his team manager Richard Plugge is making no predictions about whether he will be ready for the Grand Depart in Florence in just over a month's time.
"He is doing well, he's progressing really well," Plugge was quoted as saying by Cyclingnews. "But we need to make a decision later on if he is really able to be 100% at the start of the Tour de France. We need to see how it evolves in the coming weeks.
"We have good hopes, he is progressing well. But we also want to give him and ourselves the time to make a good decision.
"He's the defending champion but if he goes, he should be 100%. The Tour de France is not a race where you can go in with less and hope. Hope is never a good start, so we need to be sure he can be 100%."
Vingegaard was originally scheduled to prepare for the Tour at the Criterium du Dauphine, but Plugge now says he is unlikely to race before the Tour.
"Maybe we will add a race, but I think we will get more from training because it's the best and most controlled way of working after such a crash," he said.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis)
