Vuelta a Espana: ‘Riders are human’ – Reaction to ‘happy and proud’ Jonas Vingegaard emotions after Stage 13 triumph

Orla Chennaoui remarked that a “happy and proud” Jonas Vingegaard reminded cycling fans that riders are “entirely human” after he won on his daughter’s birthday.

Little was expected from Vingegaard before the Vuelta after his Tour de France win, with some suggesting he would come to support other riders depending on his condition.

Speaking after the race, he appeared to be holding back tears as he explained the significance of the victory, away from cycling, after his first win at the Vuelta on the queen stage.

He said: “I’m just so happy and I couldn’t choose a better day. Today is the birthday of my daughter and I wanted to win for her so bad today. I’m just so happy to win it for her.

“Our plan was to see if we could take some time off the opponents today and yeah, that happened.

“Just so happy and proud to do it today. This one is for my daughter.”

Chennaoui noted that the emotion affecting Vingegaard was an example of the personal lives that can inspire and also distract riders when they are at work.

Speaking on The Breakaway on Eurosport, Chennaoui said: “Riders can seem superhuman, but they’re entirely human, they have an entire world of emotion, and family and friends and life that happens off the bike as well.

“They bring all of that into their disappointments as well as their success, and we saw that today.”

Dan Lloyd concurred, adding: “I’m sure there’s a handful of people who knew it was his daughter’s birthday – I certainly wasn’t one of them – but you don’t know what the motivations are in the background for any of these riders, whether it comes from family bereavement, which we’ve had in the past, or just birthdays like we see with Jonas Vingegaard.

“But like you said, you don’t see much emotion from him. Obviously, so much concentration on the Tour because that’s his big aim for the year, and has been for the last two years as well.

“Coming to the Vuelta, we were not really sure where he’d be at, and we see his team-mates both take stage wins. Primoz Roglic and Sepp Kuss, and now we’ve seen him win on what was probably the most important day. It wasn’t just his daughter’s birthday, it was the queen stage of the race, one of the most famous climbs in cycling, and now he’s one-upped them.”