It was in 2019 when Tim Heemskerk got fully involved in training the Danish cyclist. He managed to leave the Nordic plains behind to conquer the Pyrenees twice
Jonas Vingegaard’s story began in one of the flattest countries in the world: Denmark, where the highest hill is barely 171 meters above sea level. With this background, it could be believed that the current champion of the Tour de France had everything to lose to those cyclists who grew up in the middle of the mountains, like the French or the Spanish, but With two engines as legs and with a coach like Tim Heemskerk, the Dane hit the bump again and donned the yellow jersey.
The young cyclist began his passion for sports watching handball and badminton matches, disciplines for which he had great love, but it was his parents who injected him with a passion for cycling. When he was 11 years old, Jonas Vingegaard went to see the start of a stage of the Tour of Denmark and fell in love with the helmets, the shoes and the cycles. At that time, he began to practice the sport and little by little he became regular in training.
Even so, Jonas Vingegaard did not train like a professional. Between amateur competitions and his idea of having a side job if cycling didn’t work out, the rider worked in a fish plant in the port of Hanstholm. However, his destiny was marked and After achieving the record in the Coll de Rates, with the Danish Team Coloquick, he caught the attention of Jumbo and in 2019 he met Tim Heemskerk, the coach who catapulted him into international cycling.
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Who is Tim Heemskerk, Vingegaard’s trainer?
Tim Heemskerk is one of the high performance coaches for the Jumbo Visma squad. He was born in 1976, in the Netherlands, and in his youth he was a road cyclist and also in the MTB category. After his sports career, where he did not have major recognitions, he dedicated himself to being a coach for the Netherlands national MTB team and then, in 2018, he was the manager of the United States cycling team.
Already in 2019, When Vingegaard joined the Jumbo, Heemskerk saw that he was in better shape than the others and began to train him intensively. Being gregarious with Primoz Roglic, in 2021 he surprised everyone by finishing second in the Tour, behind Pogacar, after his leader faltered. And that’s it in 2022, after training in the Sierra Nevada and the Alps, he confirmed that his coach’s premonitions were not in vain, even being raised among the plains, was a weight climber. He put on the yellow jersey for the first time.
In this edition of the Tour de France, what seemed to be a two-man race, Vingegaard vs. Pogacar, It resulted in a waste of talent from the Dane, who not only took several minutes from the Slovenian, but also swept the other runners, beating them by more than 10 minutes. Tom Heemskerk served that purpose and assisted in the setup. If it hadn’t been for his faith, today’s best cyclist in the world could continue cleaning fish in Denmark, wasting the strength God gave him in his legs.
2023-07-23 14:39:07
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