Two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) has not been selected for the Olympic Games in Paris, with Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) taking up the last of Denmark’s four allocated places.
Bjerg will ride the road race on August 3 alongside Mads Pedersen, Mattias Skjelmose (both Lidl-Trek), and Michael Mørkøv (Astana Qazaqstan), who had already been announced by the Danish Olympic committee. Mørkøv will also compete on the track.
It will be Bjerg’s first Olympic Games and he will also be Denmark’s representative for the individual time trial on July 27th.
In November last year, Vingegaard declared that he would like to go to the Olympics in Paris, saying to Danish news agency Ritzau “I hope that I will be selected, but it will not surprise me if I am not. It may well be that the national coach chooses four others instead.”
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider is coming back from injury after a crash in the Itzulia Basque country in April. He is currently training at altitude in Tignes as he seeks to defend his Tour de France crown.
All in for Mads Pedersen
Hopes for a Danish medal at the Olympic Games in Paris rest on the shoulders of 2019 world champion Mads Pedersen. The 28-year-old is well suited to the classics-style course around Paris which takes in the short sharp Côte de la Butte Montmatre on the closing laps. Bjerg is set to play a supporting role for Pedersen in the road race.
“I look forward to helping Mads. I am an assistant rider on a daily basis and specialise in just that. I know I can make a difference to the team. We have a strong Danish team, and we must show that we are ready to fight for the medals in Paris,” Bjerg said on the Denmark Sport Federation’s website.
Last month, Bjerg played a key role in Tadej Pogačar’s Giro d’Italia win. He revealed that he will now skip the Tour de France in order to focus on the Olympic Games. Bjerg has his own aspirations in Paris for the individual time trial, in which he is an outsider for a medal.
“I look forward to the time trial. I have worked with time trials for 10 years, and I know what it takes to ‘peak’ in that discipline,” said Bjerg.
“I am incredibly proud to be going to the Olympics. I have gone all in. Since December I have only been at home 14 days, and otherwise I have just [been at] races and been to training camps. I chose to ride the Giro d’Italia and skip the Tour de France in order to be completely ready for the Olympics. That’s why I’m also really relieved to be selected.”
