{"id":7769,"date":"2025-03-07T10:37:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T09:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/?p=7769"},"modified":"2025-03-27T10:45:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T09:45:50","slug":"pogacar-and-vingegaard-big-favorites-in-strade-bianche-and-paris-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2025\/03\/07\/pogacar-and-vingegaard-big-favorites-in-strade-bianche-and-paris-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard Big Favorites in Strade Bianche and Paris-Nice"},"content":{"rendered":"

After last weekend\u2019s opening of the spring Classics season, things will be heating up this weekend with the Classic Strade Bianche, which will be followed by two important early stage races, Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Can Poga\u010dar lose Strade Bianche? No!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Only a dummkopf would see anyone but Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> winning Strade Bianche. Not only is he the best one-day rider in the world \u2013 and perhaps ever \u2013 but he is facing rather modest opposition here, in the absence of Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel, and Wout van Aert. The UAE Team Emirates\u2013XGR leader won the race in 2022 and last year, when he beat second-place Toms Skuji\u0146\u0161 (Lidl-Trek) by an astonishing 2:44, after a devastating solo breakaway of 81km(!) in his first race of the year. This will be his second race of the year, after the UAE Tour, so he might have even better legs this time.<\/p>\n

The reason Poga\u010dar didn\u2019t win Strade Bianche<\/a> in 2023 is because he didn\u2019t race in it. But he will win it again this year because he loves winning, and he loves the Classics. “I prefer the idea of being a Classics rider who wins Grand Tours, even if I started with a victory in the Tour,” he told L’Equipe<\/em> during the winter. “I love the Classics, they’re pure adrenaline, a one-day shock that has nothing to do with suffering spread out over three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are some very good riders in this year\u2019s edition, such as Marc Hirschi of Tudor Pro, Q36.5\u2019s Tom Pidcock, who is having a terrific spring for his new team, and Uno-X Mobility\u2019s Magnus Cort, who won three stages of the recent O Gran Cami\u00f1o. But, brave and strong as they may be, they are simply no match for Poga\u010dar at or near his best. For example, in last year\u2019s Strade Bianche, Pidcock finished 3:50 behind the Slovenian. It\u2019s likely that Poga\u010dar will feel frisky again and start his winning move far out (though 81km may be a bit much this year).<\/p>\n

\"Tadej<\/a>
Poga\u010dar’s win at the 2025 Strade Bianche is almost inevitable.\u00a0\u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vingegaard wants big Paris-Nice win<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Paris-Nice will be far more interesting competition-wise, as two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma\u2013Lease a Bike) is facing tough competition again from Poga\u010dar\u2019s UAE teammates, including the irrepressible Jo\u00e3o Almeida, who gave the Dane all he could handle in the recent Volta ao Algarve, leading the race until the final-stage ITT, eventually finishing second in the GC by a mere 15 seconds.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Almeida and everyone else in the race, the stage-3 ITT in this year\u2019s Paris-Nice is 28.4km long, or nearly 10km longer than the Algarve ITT. This means that, if there is no mishap and Vingegaard is near his best form, he will take even more time from his rivals. And there are three tough mountain stages, with summit finishes, that the Dane can control and choose on which one he will win, as he is the best pure climber in the race.<\/p>\n

It helps that Vingegaard has last year\u2019s winner, Matteo Jorgenson, riding for him. The 25-year-old American rode for Wout van Aert in last weekend\u2019s Omloop Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and looked very strong. With van Aert\u2019s form still questionable and the super-reliable Christophe Laporte still unable to train due to illness, Jorgenson may be the most important support rider for Visma this year.<\/p>\n

Other than Almeida, the ever-improving Ben O\u2019Connor (Jayco AlUla), perhaps Lidl-Trek\u2019s Mattias Skjelmose and, especially, Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) seem the likeliest riders to cause Vingegaard some problems. But the Visma leader wants to win every race he rides in, and he wants to send a message to Poga\u010dar for the Tour de France, so he should prevail in his usual calm and calculated style.<\/p>\n

Van der Poel in Wide-Open Tirreno-Adriatico<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Finally, Tirreno-Adriatico will be a fascinating watch because of the presence of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who showed terrific form in Tuesday\u2019s Samyn Classic by easily winning a bunch sprint. It\u2019s hard to believe that, with Jasper Philipsen not at the start, van der Poel is in the race to ride lead-out for sprinter Robbe Ghys and prepare for the upcoming Classics. The seven-time cyclocross world champion is not known as a stage rider, and certainly not as a prodigious climber, but he is one of the best at riding hilly one-day races over distance.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Tirreno-Adriatico actually suits that rider profile. There is only one really difficult climb in the race, the HC Frontignano (7.6km @ 7.9%), which comes at the end of stage 6. Interestingly, aside from Richard Carapaz (EF Education\u2013EasyPost), this year\u2019s O Gran Cami\u00f1o winner Derek Gee (Israel\u2013Premier Tech), Soudal Quick-Step\u2019s Mikel Landa, and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG), there are no real climbers in the race.<\/p>\n

Oh, wait, there\u2019s also Visma\u2013Lease a Bike\u2019s Simon Yates. Well, that makes for a lot of strong riders. So, as great a rider as van der Poel is, he has not yet shown he can climb with these guys. He would have to have an advantage of at least five minutes from the hilly stages, and I don\u2019t see that happening. He will win a stage, or maybe two, but the yellow jersey should come down to a battle between Ayuso, who has won two of the three races he started this year, and Yates, who will want to impress his new team with a great performance his first time out in its colors.<\/p>\n

In other words, we will probably be looking at yet another UAE-Visma brouhaha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After last weekend\u2019s opening of the spring Classics season, things will be heating up this weekend with the Classic Strade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":7859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-7769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-the-latest"],"yoast_head":"\nPoga\u010dar and Vingegaard Big Favorites in Strade Bianche and Paris-Nice - \u0160koda We Love Cycling - United Kingdom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2025\/03\/07\/pogacar-and-vingegaard-big-favorites-in-strade-bianche-and-paris-nice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard Big Favorites in Strade Bianche and Paris-Nice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After last weekend\u2019s opening of the spring Classics season, things will be heating up this weekend with the Classic Strade […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2025\/03\/07\/pogacar-and-vingegaard-big-favorites-in-strade-bianche-and-paris-nice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling - 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