Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has announced that he will return to the Tour de France next season.

The Dane, who won the yellow jersey in July after defeating two-time champion Tadej Pogachar, initially thought next year's race would be more suitable for his Slovenian rival.

But in an interview with WielerFlits (open in new tab) and Ride magazine, Vingegaard said he thinks the 2023 route is tougher than his first impression.

"It's going to be another tough route," he said. When I first saw the parcours, I knew this was the Tour de France for Pogachar."

"But the closer I look at the route, the better it seems to be getting. Every time I study parkour, I feel like it suits me better."

Vingegaard said that he initially thought the route had few climbs that suited him. Later, however, he changed his mind.

"My first observation was that there were few really high mountains on this tool. 'My initial feeling was that there were very few climbs that suited me. But as I studied the Tour in more detail, I came to the conclusion that certain stages suited me very well."

"In the previous edition, there were a number of climbs of around 3 km, but next year those climbs will not be on the route. Now there are a lot of climbs around 10 km, all of them quite difficult."

As if a detailed study of the Tour's 2023 route wasn't enough, Vingegaard made it clear that he will return to defend his title next summer.

He said that the Giro d'Italia, with more than three times the time trial kilometers of the Tour, was an interesting prospect, but that he had not done much research on the course beyond that.

"I want to go back to the Tour," he said. It feels special to start with the number one jersey. I know that the Giro has some good kilometers for time trials, but I haven't looked at any courses beyond that."