No doubts: why Jonas Vingegaard is still better than last year despite setback

At Visma | Lease a Bike, the goal was definitely to win Paris-Nice with Jonas Vingegaard, but you still have to deliver. Team leader Marc Reef sees only positives in hindsight.

"After a good winter, during which Jonas regained the feeling from Tirreno-Adriatico in 2024, he was very eager to show himself here at Paris-Nice," the Dutch sports director told HLN. "Curious to see how all that hard preparation would translate into racing. Well, from the very first moment it clicked. And he passed on his enthusiasm to the rest of the team."

Vingegaard did, however, make headlines for the wrong reasons a few times. Due to a combination of illness and a training crash, he had to skip the UAE Tour, making Paris-Nice the season opener on his calendar. Ahead of the Tour of Catalonia (starting March 22), a motivated Vingegaard still wanted to have raced.

“Tall trees catch a lot of wind,” Reef knows. “Especially when one of the big names has their schedule adjusted, opinions arise. But for Jonas and for us, it was no issue at all. Not for a second did he hesitate. Neither did we. His base was far too strong for that. His values are really higher than at the same stage last year.”

Reef is not bothered by the fact that the competition was less intense than at Tirreno-Adriatico, especially after the withdrawals of Joao Almeida and Mattias Skjelmose and Juan Ayuso’s absence. “Paris-Nice is always extremely tough with its weather conditions and courses. Last year Jonas was even knocked out here himself. And... first try winning a race, right? Above all, the way he did it was quite impressive.”

Against riders like Florian Lipowitz, Remco Evenepoel and Joao Almeida, the Tour of Catalonia will be a different challenge. “I’m curious how Jonas will compare to those guys,” Reef says. “And what it does to a climb lasting an hour instead of twenty minutes. Normally, that should suit him even better.”