Things around the dinner table are going to be pretty fab at the Jumbo Visma hotel.
The champagne will flow, desserts will be indulged in, someone may even order a Hamburger American with fries. Probably the Colorado climber, Sepp Kuss — his work is done, time to put on a kilo of fun.
It’s been an incredible Tour de France. They’ve won the yellow jersey, the green jersey and the polka dot jersey. They have, what – four or five stage wins? Despite ups and downs, a near catastrophic crash, losing Roglic and Kruijswijk, they won across the board in the most dramatic and thrilling Tour de France in decades.
So yeah, Jonas wants the $300 euro bottle of champagne, order it up. Kuss wants the fries and a side order of oysters, yeah whatever. If Mister-Do-It-All Wout van Aert wants green food coloring on his whipped cream with cake, then so be it.
This was a absolute, dream Tour for Jumbo Visma — get out the cigars, crack open the pricey cognac, set the karaoke machine up and have Vingegaard belt out “I Did It My Way.” Hell, you just beat the supposedly invincible, two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogacar. If Wout wants to dance, give the man some room. Like everything else, you know he’s got the best moves in the peloton.
Let’s get crazy — why wait until Paris? If Jacques Anquetil can drink champagne all night, get on his race bike the next morning and still win another Tour de France, so can Jonas. He’s got three minutes, folks. How hard can a 40 kilometer time trial really be? It’s called cruise control.
Perhaps the best part of the whole celebration will be enjoying the revenge. The fact that they proved all the critics wrong. Critics that said they were stupid to send combing ace Primoz Roglic home so he could rest up for the Vuelta a Espana. WTF said the critics — even a Roglic at 90% would be massive help going into the Pyrenees with Pogacar ready to go aggro. Guess what — didn’t need Roglic.
The self-appointed experts said, why is Jumbo letting Wout van Aert try to win every stage, jumping in every break, ignoring his support role for Vingegaard? They’re going to pay the price for that. It’s going to come back to bite their lycra ass. Van Aert will be cooked and useless in the third week. Wrong again, Wout and Jonas will roll into Paris, resplendent in yellow and green. It’s what we’ve learned in the pandemic — nobody knows anything for sure. Experts are just people who shout louder.
And guess what — there were penalty of critics that said they didn’t think Vingegaard can handle the pressure of the yellow jersey. Unknown territory, never had the experience, former fish factory worker. And yet, the Dane as focused, calm and alert, quickly responding to every attack, up the mountains and down. A Tour de force, in the Tour de France.
So yeah, going to be a lot of fun around the Jumbo-Visma table. It’s a euphoric feeling to win yellow and green and red polka dots. It’s even more exhilarating to prove everyone wrong.
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