Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
It’s really not like me to want anything that a professional athlete has (apart from the muscle tone and impressive dedication to physical excellence, that is), but I have to admit that I’m extremely charmed by the love story unfolding in front of us, between two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard and his wife, Trine Hansen. (A retired rower herself, Hansen currently works as a talent manager.)
Outside of this couple’s obvious photogenic adorable-ness (just look at them with their baby!), I love the fact that Hansen has spoken out about just how grueling her husband’s training regimen is, telling a Danish newspaper this month that all of Vingegaard’s travel was “squeezing the lemon too much.”
“It starts in February and it’s back and forth every other week… It’s a really tough life,” she said. “Jonas doesn’t recharge when he’s on another three-week altitude training camp with the team. He really needs to be with us at home in Denmark to do that.”
Apparently, Hansen’s comments have unleashed a firestorm of controversy within the cycling world, to which I can only say…why? Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team has insisted there’s no issue with the athlete’s schedule, but if you’re going to win not one, but two Tours, I assume your hours do, indeed, have to be pretty insane, not to mention all the travel and the physical exertion. Is it really so wrong for Hansen to say something about it? We love a queen who stands up for her man, even if it makes her unpopular!