Mastering descents with Vingegaard: Lessons learned from riding with Van Aert and Laporte

The Tour de France is one week in and Visma | Lease a Bike's leader Jonas Vingegaard is facing a 1.15-minute deficit compared to his main rival Tadej Pogacar. Within the Dutch team, there is satisfaction with these facts, as the Dane is still recovering from a serious crash he suffered in April during the Tour of the Basque Country.

Matteo Jorgenson, the shadow leader at Visma | Lease a Bike, joined the THEMOVE podcast with Lance Armstrong after his strong individual time trial. The American, who himself is recovering well after a nasty fall in the opening weekend, is impressed by his teammate. "Jonas is quite introverted, so he doesn't reveal much about how he feels. But he exuded confidence in the first week, especially since he started the Tour feeling somewhat nervous."

"He doesn't have too big of an ego, so before the Tour, he didn't really have the confidence," Jorgenson explains. "During the opening weekend, he gained a lot of confidence, and I think he's still in a good position now after the time trial. I'm sure he would have signed up for this blindly, given how things stand now. When he was in the hospital, I spoke with him. At that time, he didn't even know if he wanted to continue cycling."

Vingegaard also exudes confidence in descents, despite his serious crash in the Basque Country. Jorgenson attributes this to the altitude training camp in Tignes. "I don't think he specifically trained for that, but when you're on a training camp with Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte... when you're sitting on top of a mountain with those two guys, you naturally train your descents just to keep up with them. I think that helped him. It was also important to be with the group in Tignes because after his crash, he trained alone a lot," says the always articulate American.

Video: Matteo Jorgenson a guest on podcast Lance Armstrong