Is Matteo Jorgenson Too Tall to Win a Grand Tour?
With Jonas Vingegaard just leaving the hospital a few days ago and Wout van Aert officially out of the Giro, questions about who Visma-Lease a Bike’s general classification (GC) contender for this year’s Grand Tours are rightly swirling.
However, despite the successes he’s enjoyed this season, American racer Matteo Jorgenson says it’s probably not going to be him.
Why? He’s too tall.
“I think, for a guy my size, it’d be a pretty big challenge to go for three weeks with so much energy demand,” the 6'3" 24-year-old who rides for Visma-Lease a Bike recently told Cycling Weekly. “That’s basically the biggest limiting factor. I just have a much bigger frame than most of these guys, and it’s really difficult to see how I would maintain that over three weeks.”
Of course, on a team that counts reigning Vuelta a España winner Sepp Kuss, all eyes will be on the Eagle of Durango should Vingegaard’s recovery impact his Tour de France chances. After all, Kuss has spent the last two seasons pulling Vingegaard through the Alps and the Pyrenees. And now with a Grand Tour to his palmarès, it’s an easy assumption to make.
And with 20-year-old Cian Uijtdebroeks going for the Maglia Rosa, Visma’s Giro aspirations appear to be covered.
But it’s not too far a leap to wonder if Jorgenson—who won this spring’s Paris-Nice—can make the jump from eight-stage race winner to Grand Tour contender. After all, tall riders have won the biggest races in the past.
According to Jorgenson, however, times have changed. “We haven't seen a guy my size winning Grand Tours since maybe Induráin,” he said. “I think, nowadays, the energy demands are really so high that when you scale it from a guy like Jonas to a guy like me, I just need so much more energy to get over the mountain days.
“One-week races I can get through pretty well,” he continued. “It's when it's chained together over three, four days between 3,000 and 4,000 meters (of climbing), I don't think I could recover well enough. Obviously, that's just me theorizing, I've never tried it.”
Jorgenson, who also won Dwars door Vlaanderen with a late-race solo attack, put the cycling world on notice last summer with a stunning, though eventually fruitless, attack up the Puy de Dôme during the ninth stage of the Tour de France.
Jorgenson, who was then riding for Movistar, spent most of the last fifty kilometers alone, including nearly the whole of the 13.3-kilometer, 7.7 percent Puy de Dôme. His radio cut out and given no fans were allowed on the iconic Puy, he rode the entire climb alone and in silence. Perhaps if he had a radio, Jorgenson would have known several riders were closing, including Israel Premier Tech’s Michael Woods, who passed Jorgenson with just a few hundred meters and eventually won the stage.
Still, the heroic attack shone a light on Jorgenson’s name. His results this season made it certain that the Puy attack wasn’t a flash in the pan. We’ll see what the Grand Tours have in store for him and whether or not the biggest men can contest for the biggest wins anymore.
You Might Also Like
