'We hoped for more' - Vingegaard eyes first Paris-Nice summit finish after TTT setback

At first glance, Visma | Lease a Bike’s performance in the stage 3 team time trial at Paris-Nice was of a piece with the opening weeks of their season. The Dutch squad are simply not what they used to be, at least for now.

Visma had won two of the past three team time trials at Paris-Nice, and they had three recognised time trial powerhouses – Victor Campenaerts, Bruno Armirail and Edoardo Affini – to help Jonas Vingegaard along the way in Pouilly-sur-Loire.

That combination sufficed to give Visma the quickest time when they crossed the line, but they were bumped from the hotseat just as quickly. Even though Daan Hoole (Decathlon CMA CGM) was alone for the closing kilometres, he was still faster than the combination of Vingegaard, Armirail and Davide Piganzoli.

Lidl-Trek and stage winners Ineos would also better their time, leaving Visma fourth on the stage, 15 seconds down. Hardly a disaster, of course, but it does little to dispel the nagging sense that something fundamental is still awry. At the very least, it seems their strategy of keeping riders with Vingegaard in the final kilometre was misplaced.

“Of course we had hoped for more, but this is what it is,” Vingegaard said in a statement released by the team afterwards. “It may not have been our best day as a team, but nevertheless we rode a strong time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for the win.”

The thought was echoed by sports director Marc Reef. “In the end, three teams were better,” he said. “That’s the honest story.”

The result leaves Vingegaard in seventh place, 17 seconds down on the new yellow jersey Juan Ayuso. The Spaniard impressed with his assured solo effort in the final kilometre, though he endured a disappointment of his own when Lidl-Trek fell just two seconds shy of claiming stage honours.

“Obviously, it’s better to be 17 seconds in front than 17 seconds behind,” Ayuso said afterwards when asked about his early buffer over Vingegaard. Already winner of the Volta ao Algarve last month, Ayuso had signalled his intentions for this edition of Paris-Nice by scooping up four bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint on Monday.

Vingegaard, meanwhile, had looked less comfortable with the terms of engagement thus far on the Race to the Sun. After a hairy descent on the opening stage, for instance, he complained about the condition of the road surfaces and questioned if they were worthy of WorldTour racing, a charge disputed by organiser ASO.

On Wednesday, however, Vingegaard will move onto more amenable terrain when Paris-Nice tackles its first summit finish, and stage 4 to Uchon seems destined to produce a head-to-head contest between Vingegaard, Ayuso and the other GC contenders.

Vingegaard, like Visma, has endured a troubled start to 2026, with a bizarre training crash and a bout of illness forcing him to miss his planned seasonal debut at the UAE Tour, while his long-term coach Tim Heemskerk surprisingly quit the team. 

The paucity of information from Visma created a vacuum that would inevitably be filled by all sorts of conjecture about Vingegaard’s form, morale and his prospects at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France this summer.

But vibes-based analysis has obvious limitations. Wednesday’s summit finish at Uchon, on the other hand, will provide Vingegaard with his first tangible test of the season and his performance here will offer firmer pointers as to how much, if at all, he has been affected by events this winter.

Stage 4 is a day of two parts and, as is so often the case when Paris-Nice visits this neck of the woods, there is scope for a deviation from the anticipated script. The initial trek eastwards from Bourges is on flat and exposed roads. With rain and a brisk southerly breeze forecast, the prospect of echelons will be foremost in everyone’s mind, and a tense day is in prospect.

The terrain becomes more rugged once the race hits the final 80km, starting with the category 3 Côte de la Croix des Cerisiers (6.2km at 4.3%). The short and sharp category 2 Côte de la Croix de la Libération (4.6km at 5.3%) features ramps of 12%, and there isn’t much respite before the peloton reaches the finishing climb to Uchon. 

All told, the category 1 ascent is 8km at 4.5%, but the devil is in the detail. After climbing at a steady 5% for the first 3km, a series of dips and rises follow before a final 2km that average just shy of 11%. 

There will be nowhere to hide. Ayuso and Oscar Onley, third at three seconds, have already been involved in high-octane slugging matches on stiff climbs in the Algarve. For Vingegaard, this is his first close-up of the new year.

“I would have preferred to have a lead, but the differences are not huge,” Vingegaard said on Tuesday. “We have a strong team and we will do everything we can in the coming days to make up some time. I feel good, so I’m looking forward to the next days.”