Christophe Laporte: "A victory in the velodrome in Roubaix would be the pinnacle of my career"

Christophe Laporte has become one of the key figures at Team Visma | Lease a Bike ever since he came from Cofidis. He's become a luxury domestique at the Tour de France, a proven winner in the classics and an Olympic medalist this year. In 2025 he would love to win Paris-Roubaix, something that is not yet in his palmarès or that of Wout van Aert.

“I cannot define my season as totally negative because I still won an Olympic medal and I won the Paris-Tours," Laporte said in words to L'Équipe. In the spring a saddle sore issue saw him struggle to even get through the classics, let alone chase results. After van Aert was sidelined from the Giro d'Italia due to his own injuries, the Frenchman filled in, but also abandoned as a result of a crash of his own.

"With the team we had a meeting to try to understand the reasons for the many falls and to try to improve. There is certainly an element of bad luck, but it is difficult to identify a cause. The truth is that there are falls throughout the group but for us they are more noticeable because we have so many champions in the team. We have certainly been unlucky, but now we have turned the page and we are ready to think about 2025".

Laporte is looking towards a fresh start, without the bad luck that haunted him a few times last year. In the past he's won races like the European Championships, Gent Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen and at the Tour de France with Visma, and he's looking for more high-level victories.

"My calendar will consist of Omloop, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Strade Bianche, Milano-Sanremo and then the classics in Belgium in preparation for Roubaix and the Amstel Gold Race," he details clearly. The cobbled classics are a big goal, and in Sanremo he will have a co-leadership together with Olav Kooij.

Then follows the final cobbled classics block including the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. "Then we will see. Wout will be the leader but I will have a freer role, even if I am always ready to help him. He is the strongest in terms of legs, but in these races the strongest does not always win, tactics and teamwork are also needed".

"We will try to play our cards. On a personal level I would like to try to win a Monument, a victory in the velodrome in Roubaix would be the pinnacle of my career, I would exceed every kind of expectation I could have had for myself. We will see," he concluded.