Christophe Laporte hasn't lost his touch for the classics: "I want to win one"

Christophe Laporte will feel like he is ‘finally’ racing a spring classic again on Saturday. In the last two years, he has only participated in five. This was entirely due to a saddle sore injury in the spring of 2024 and the cytomegalovirus that kept him out of competition for the first eight months of 2025. In the Alpecin Barbershop, he tells WielerFlits that he is ready for a new spring season. 

The 33-year-old Frenchman’s spring classics over the past 24 months were limited to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2024 (fourth), Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2024 (fifth), Strade Bianche 2024 (tenth), Milan-San Remo 2024 (DNF), and Paris-Roubaix 2024 (25th). All the misery is now behind him, and he immediately won the opening stage of Ruta del Sol. He was also in good form for the rest of the week, until a crash forced him to abandon on the final stage. That was not too serious, as Laporte has since been confirmed by his team Visma | Lease a Bike for the Opening Weekend.

Last season was very frustrating for him because his patience was severely tested by the cytomegalovirus. By mid-October, he had regained his previous level, evidenced by a third place in Binche-Chimay-Binche, second in Paris-Tours, and the overall victory in the NIBC Tour of Holland. “It’s true that I missed a lot of classics in the last two years, but that doesn’t mean you immediately lose your feeling for the races. I did them in the ten years before that as well. I’m really looking forward to it because I race because I love the classics.”

In the past two years, he mostly had to watch those races from the couch and on TV. “Still, I don’t think the style of racing has changed much in those two years. That shift happened more like three, four, five years ago, when the top riders started opening up the races earlier. But well, we see that in basically all races now. I just want to race and feel good all year long. Especially, of course, during the classics that I don’t want to miss. I want to try to win a classic again and reach my best level, both for myself and for Visma | Lease a Bike.”

“I also feel like I can still improve. I’m still searching for my limit. Hopefully I can find it this year or next season, to see what I can achieve,” says Laporte, whose contract with the Dutch WorldTeam runs out at the end of the season. “Of course, I think about that because you have to consider what you want in the future. But that’s in the back of my mind. First of all, I focus on cycling and racing. When I’m in a break period, that’s when I think about my cycling future.”