Twenty-six years after Bjarne Riis, the first Danish winner of the Grande Boucle in 1996 - who admitted having doped after his career - the yellow jersey is entitled to honors from the balcony of the capital's town hall, place of great celebrations of Danish sport.
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A large crowd colored in red and white, but also yellow, gathered at midday in the main square.
"
It's fantastic and mega-moving (...) I still haven't realized that I won the Tour de France
," the 25-year-old champion told the press when he got off the plane.
In red and white livery, two Danish Air Force F-16s escorted the small private plane chartered by a sponsor to transport the Tour winner and his family.
"
It's something I couldn't have imagined, it's unbelievable
," said the Danish climber before boarding a convertible through the streets of Copenhagen.
Thousands of people had gathered along the route, waving Danish flags and clapping the cyclist's hand, according to live images broadcast by national television.
“
Vingegaard!
Vingegaard!
shouted the fans.
For Allan Olsen, a 59-year-old Dane, the victory of the young cyclist even outweighs Euro 92 football or the handball titles in Denmark's sports pantheon.
"
It's probably the greatest thing that has happened in the history of Danish sport
," he told AFP, painting a yellow banner proclaiming "
we are red, we are white
", in the square of the 'city Hall.
In a country that had already demonstrated its passion for cycling during the unprecedented start of the Grande Boucle, Jonas Vingegaard must then join the famous Tivoli amusement park, located just next door, for a new celebratory ceremony.
The impressive performance of Vingegaard, who overpowered Slovenian favorite Tadej Pogacar and crushed the rest of the competition with his Jumbo-Visma side, raised questions in a sport long plagued by doping.
“
We are completely clean, each of us in the team
,” assured the Dane on Saturday, once his victory was won the next day in Paris.
In addition to Bjarne Riis, Danish cycling has been splashed by doping with the case of Michael Rasmussen, excluded from the 2007 Tour which he was about to win.
The parents and the first coaches of little Jonas said that his beginnings in cycling had been sluggish, with a very frail physique and no victory in his local club.
"
He was small and he wasn't winning
," Ole Iversen, who hosted Jonas when he was 11, told DR television at the tiny Thy Cykle Ring club in the northwest of the Scandinavian country.
On Thursday afternoon, Vingegaard is due to continue the celebrations in his small town of Glyngøre, in the west of the country.
More than 10,000 people are expected, six times more than the number of inhabitants of the village.
“
He brought the nation together.
It's really big
, ”rejoiced Claus, the cyclist's father, at the microphone of national television DR.