The Visma – Lease a Bike team was set to make a documentary about preparing for and participating in the 2024 Tour de France and ended up with more to tell than expected. Jonas Vingegaard suffered a brutal crash in the 2024 Tour of the Basque Country in April and his recovery is documented. The Dane spoke in powerful words about the accident that threatened his career and his life.
What happened on stage 4 of the Basque race will probably be the most shocking moment of the year in professional cycling. Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and several others crashed at high speed, with several riders falling into a ditch. Vingegaard was not among them, but he crashed into a pile of stones on the side of the road and suffered a broken collarbone and ribs, as well as a punctured lung. He was one of the four riders who required serious medical treatment at the side of the road for a long time.
In the new documentary “A True Renaissance” he talks in detail about this accident, the moments before and after the fall: “We were on a fast descent in the Basque Country. We came into a bend, but the road was a bit bumpy. That’s why I couldn’t brake. After another bump I hit the ground. I had no air left in my lungs and then had to cough. Then I spat out pure blood.”
Vingegaard’s situation was dire, and that quickly became clear when he lay conscious but motionless on the side of the road: “At that moment I wasn’t thinking about the Tour at all. That wasn’t important to me. It was more important to stay alive. I don’t know if my life was really in danger, but it felt like it was because of the blood I was spitting out,” he says.
It was a brutal accident that required a lot of support. His recovery was miraculous by most people’s standards, as he spent 8 days in intensive care and almost two whole weeks in hospital in the Basque Country before he could fly back to Denmark. He was only able to get back on the bike in early May, a month later, and within a month and a half he had recovered from his injuries and prepared well enough to challenge for victory in the Tour de France, finishing second in the general classification behind Tadej Pogacar.
The 51-minute documentary offers plenty of insight into Visma’s Tour campaign, including moments before, during and after the race – captured by TV channels but also by Visma’s own film crew. Watch it for yourself in the video below:
