Cycling – Tour de France – Stage 21 – Paris La Defense Arena at the Champs-Elysees – France – July 24, 2022 Jumbo – Visma’s Jonas Vingaard celebrates on the podium wearing the leader’s yellow jersey after winning the Tour de France REUTERS/Christian hartmann

COPENHAGEN, July 27 (Reuters) – Tour de France winner Jonas Vingaard was clearly moved as he was celebrated by thousands of jubilant Danes on Wednesday in Copenhagen, where the world’s biggest cycling race kicked off a while ago. almost a month.

“It’s fantastic. I’m almost completely speechless. I don’t know what to say,” Vingaard said, before stepping onto a balcony where he was greeted by a crowd of flag-waving Danes in the town hall square. from Copenhagen.

Soft-spoken Vingeard, who struggled with anxiety earlier in his career, was just the second Dane to win the world’s biggest cycle race since fellow countryman Bjarne Riis became the first to do so in 1996 .

Vingeard and his family were flown by private plane to Denmark on Wednesday after celebrations in the Netherlands, home of his Jumbo-Visma team.

When the plane entered Danish airspace, it was escorted by two Danish Defense F-16 fighter jets, a tradition held to honor Danish gold medal-winning athletes upon their return.

“We both took the day off just to come here and celebrate Vingaard,” said Rene Max Hansen, 29, waiting with his brother near Copenhagen’s Town Hall Square.

“I ride a bike myself and recently managed to persuade my brother to buy a racing bike. The euphoria is contagious,” he said.

The 25-year-old, who five years ago worked as a fish packer in a factory in the morning before training in the afternoon, followed his surprise second place finish last year.

Vingegaard laid the foundations for his victory in the 10th stage of the Tour, when he and his teammate Primoz Roglic relentlessly attacked their rival and two-time race winner, Tadej Pogacar, and cracked him on the climb to the Col du Granon.

The Dane, who joined the Jumbo-Visma cycling team in 2019, sealed victory with another win at Hautacam on the final mountain stage.

“It was really moving to see him take the yellow jersey and defend it the way he did,” said Miriam Fibiger, who traveled across the country from her hometown in southern Denmark to join in the celebration.

Dressed in a yellow Tour de France t-shirt and yellow bicycle-shaped earrings, Fibiger lined up to enter the Tivoli amusement park in central Copenhagen, where Vingaard will be celebrated later on Wednesday .

“They only let 25,000 people in, so we want to make sure we get in,” she said.

Vingaard thanked his first cycle club Thy Cykle Ring and extended his gratitude to the volunteers at cycle sport clubs across the country, without which he said he would not have won the Tour de France.

His hometown of Glyngore in northern Denmark will host Vingaard for further celebrations on Thursday.

Denmark has hosted the first three stages of the Tour de France, with the first stage being a 13km time trial through the Danish capital, known as the most bike-friendly city in the world.

Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen Editing by Christian Radnedge

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