BARCELONA, Spain, July 4 (Reuters) - Jonas Vingegaard's dream of recapturing the Tour de France yellow jersey after a gap of three years came true on Saturday, marking a remarkable comeback from a harrowing crash in 2024.
The 29-year-old Dane's Visma-Lease a Bike squad triumphed in the team time trial that kicked off the 2026 Tour de France in Barcelona.
Vingegaard last wore the coveted yellow jersey when he celebrated his second consecutive Tour de France victory on the Champs-Elysees in 2023.
At the time, few doubted his ability to extend his dominance but a devastating crash in the Tour of the Basque Country in April 2024 drastically altered the trajectory of his career when he suffered a broken collarbone, multiple fractured ribs, a pulmonary contusion and a collapsed lung.
"I was on the ground thinking I was going to die," Vingegaard told a press conference after Saturday's win. "Honestly, you don't think about cycling when you're there; you just think about staying alive.
"Being back in the yellow jersey is, for me, the most important (thing)," Vingegaard said. "It's something I dreamt of for the last three years. I will enjoy every moment that I'm going to be wearing it."
Despite his injuries, Vingegaard returned to the Tour de France two months after the crash, winning a stage but falling far short of challenging Slovenian rival Tadej Pogacar, who claimed the title with apparent ease in the 2024 and 2025 editions.
"It's been a few hard years for me, for obvious reasons," Vingegaard said. "I've been at times struggling in the last few years and then now I feel like I can close this chapter in the book."
He targeted Saturday's opening stage in Barcelona and was backed by strong performances from teammates Matteo Jorgenson and Davide Piganzoli over the 19.6-km time trial.
Vingegaard's 2026 season has already been productive, with victory at the Giro d'Italia on his debut in May, and he is bidding for arare Giro-Tour double. The last rider to achieve it was Pogacar in 2024 — only the eighth cyclist in history to do so.
Going into Sunday's second stage, with a 169-km hilly ride from Tarragona to Barcelona, Vingegaard leads Pogacar by 12 seconds in the general classification after the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad finished third in the team time trial.
"The next stages will already be very hard ones," Vingegaard said. "From now on, it's just going to be fighting every single day to do the best possible."
(Reporting by Vincent Daheron in Barcelona; editing by Clare Fallon)
