Jonas Vingegaard’s achievement in completing a grand slam of Grand Tours lifts him into a select club of champions that have recorded victories in the tours of Italy, France and Spain. The 29-year-old Dane joins Belgium’s Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil of France, Spain’s Alberto Contador, Italians Felice Gimondi and Vincenzo Nibali and Chris Froome, of Great Britain, as winners of all three Grand Tours.

It’s an accomplishment that has, to date, proven beyond his great rival, Tadej Pogacar, who, despite his multiple successes in other races, has yet to add the Vuelta a España to his wins in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. “It is a special day for me,” Vingegaard said, showing rare emotion as he paid tribute to the support of his family. “It’s way more than I could ever dream of when I was a kid.”

His grand slam is all the more remarkable given that he endured life-threatening injuries following a high-speed crash in the Basque Country in 2024, in which he broke his ribs, sternum and collarbone and also punctured a lung. “I really believed I was going to die,” he said in the aftermath.

While Pogacar was racking up further wins, it proved to be a long road back for Vingegaard. “I feel like I’ve spent the last two years fighting my way back,” he admitted, shortly before the Giro began.

Although this latest crushing win proved that Vingegaard is back to his best, his success came in a Giro field lacking four-times Tour de France winner Pogacar, double Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel and the French prodigy Paul Seixas. However, they will all be on the start line for the Tour’s Grand Depart in Barcelona in July. If the Danish rider hoped for a tough – but not too tough – challenge before lining up against Pogacar at the Tour, he was granted his wish. Vingegaard’s resilience has been tested, but not exhausted, during his fourth Grand Tour win. “If you don’t come out of a Grand Tour completely on your knees, then you have something to build on,” he said.

It says a lot about the uncomplicated nature of Vingegaard’s Giro victory that in winning five summit finishes and taking the overall victory by more than five minutes, he was never really in jeopardy. It’s a stretch to portray this Giro as a glorified training camp for the Dane and his Visma Lease-a-bike team, but at times, as he rose out of the saddle and accelerated clear to another mountain stage win, it felt that way. Felix Gall, the Austrian climber, who raced to a career-best Grand Tour finish of second overall, said: “I’m not sure Jonas really worried about me. He is clearly on a different level.”

If Pogacar didn’t exist Vingegaard’s consistency would make him the outstanding rider of his generation. In the past 11 months he has finished second in the Tour and won the Vuelta, and this season won Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Giro.

Despite that, with the significance of the Tour dwarfing cycling’s other races, Vingegaard still exists in Pogacar’s shadow. Given his current level a third Tour win looks possible for the Dane, but it would require a dip in form from the Slovenian to allow him to succeed.

There is still room for improvement, which, for a rider who has finished second in Paris on three occasions, will be a big motivator. The downside for Vingegaard, however, is that with Pogacar still at the peak of his powers, it may not be enough.

As Vingegaard rode to victory in Italy, Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel were training at altitude in southern Spain, both focused on honing their climbing form prior to the Tour. Seixas has also been putting in marathon training rides at Sierra Nevada, accumulating around 37,000 metres of vertical gain in less than two weeks. Vingegaard, after two weeks at home with his family in Denmark, will also put the final touches to his Tour preparation at altitude, in Tignes.

Geraint Thomas’s first Grand Tour as director of racing for the new-look Netcompany Ineos team was a mixed bag. Thymen Arensman, their Dutch leader, faltered in the final mountain stages and slipped from third place to fourth overall, but still achieved his best finish in a Grand Tour. Although the British team took a stage win through Filippo Ganna, it still lacks a leader potent enough to contend for a Grand Tour success.