PREVIEW | Paris-Nice 2025 - Jonas Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson main favourites to consolidate Visma title in France

Paris-Nice is one of the most reputable and toughest stage-races in the World Tour calendar and every single year it hosts many of the world's best climbers, sprinters and classics riders. This year the race takes place from the 9th to 16th of March. We preview the race ahead.

The race opens up with a stage for the sprinters. There won't be too much that can stop it, but an intermediate sprint at the top of a hill close to the finish can see an interesting fight for bonifications.

Stage 2 will be the second and clearest opportunity for the sprinters throughout the race, having a mostly flat 186-kilometer long day that has almost no climbing whatsoever and a finale in Bellegarde.

Day 3 of the race will be the team time-trial, a discipline that has risen in use this year due to it's presence at the Tour de France. Some teams will be testing their setups here in the 28-kilometer long course, one that is not completely flat and will be interesting for teams to pace.

Stage 4 is the first day that features quite a bit of climbing. All legs will be saved for the final ascent to La Loge des Gardes where the last time around it was Tadej Pogacar who won. An explosive ascent, but one where it's possible to make differences.

Stage 5 is the day where the organizers best organized something for the classics specialists. This is terrain just like the Ardennes, and the finale is incredibly similar to La Fléche Wallonne. There will be plenty short and sharp climbs in the final hour of racing, but it's in the ascent to the Notre-Dame-de-Sciez (with gradients up to 18%) to the line that we'll have the most fireworks.

The sixth day of racing will be the final opportunity for the sprinters. A bunch finish at Berre-l'Étang is expected, but with 210 kilometers on the menu and a few climbs spread all throughout the course, there may be a surprise.

The queen stage potentially? The terrain doesn't favour the creation of big gaps, but this is the only day where the riders will truly head into the Alps. They will tackle the Col de la Colmiane and then have a summit finish in Auron, where the pure climbers will have their best opportunity to make the difference.

However, the fireworks are always reserved to the final day of the race that starts and ends in Nice. Short, but always explosive. This time around, there isn't much climbing early on, but with the combo of the hairpin-filled Côte de Peille; Col d'Èze and the Col des Quatre Chemins, the race is only going to be decided once the riders arrive back down to Nice.

Jonas Vingegaard - Visma is the team to beat here. Jonas Vingegaard's first test of the season in the Algarve saw him missing the ideal form in the summit finish, but I expect better form now. In the mountain stages he will be hard to drop, on the opposite he himself could and should gain time on the competition. But even if the Dane isn't in the right position, defending champion Matteo Jorgenson is a great call for overall victory as a very diverse rider, great climber and incredibly motivated as the race finishes in his second home.

João Almeida - UAE led the race briefly with Brandon McNulty last year and he could well try to do the same. With McNulty and Pavel Sivakov, UAE have weapons to attack the hillier days and put Visma under pressure. Both are not very consistent, but on their best days are great climbers, aggressive but most of all brilliant rouleurs - that aren't as marked as some others. Almeida will have to contest with Vingegaard directly, but we saw the Portuguese rider drop Vingegaard on the mountain stage of the Volta ao Algarve and the team's TTT should be very strong so everything is possible.

Mattias Skjelmose - There is a team time-trial in this race and we must not forget just how well Lidl-Trek have ridden this effort in Valencia, decimating the competition. Although of course it's not the same lineup, a good time is expected and over the last weekend Skjelmose showed brilliant form in the Drôme Classic. A man who performed very well here last year, I wouldn't be surprised to see it again.

Although there is no individual time-trial, a few teams and riders will end up losing time on the TTT and will have to make it up. Felix Gall quickly comes to mind, and Decathlon is the kind of team that often is not afraid to put the big teams under pressure and attack the mountain stages. Riders like Santiago Buitrago, Lenny Martínez, and Ben O'Connor are all aggressive and can all make the difference on their best day.

Movistar show up with the 'Andalucia trio' of Pablo Castrillo, Iván Romeo and Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda - all riders who have showed tremendous form already this year; Quick-Step has former winner Max Schachmann and Ilan van Wilder; BORA has Alexsandr Vlasov (last year's queen stage winner) and Florian Lipowitz to attack the climbs... The likes of Thymen Arensman, Michael Storer, Magnus Sheffield, Guillaume Martin, Neilson Powless and Harold Tejada are also to consider for a strong GC.

Tim Merlier will be the big figure coming in as the sprinter to beat on the flat stages, whilst the likes of Mads Pedersen and Michael Matthews will be very dangerous for those stages that feature a bit more climbing. With different days in mind, we've also got the following sprinters present: Alberto Dainese, Mads Pedersen, Danny van Poppel, Juan Sebastián Molano, Fabio Jakobsen, Tobias Lund Andresen, Arnaud Démare, Alexander Kristoff and Stanislaw Aniolkowski. Furthermore puncheurs such as Jhonatan Narváez, Julian Alaphilippe and Axel Zingle could make the hilly stages quite interesting and more than a mere GC fight.

*** Jonas Vingegaard
** João Almeida, Mattias Skjelmose, Matteo Jorgenson, Santiago Buitrago
* Pavel Sivakov, Brandon McNulty, Ilan van Wilder, Max Schachmann, Aleksandr Vlasov, Florian Lipowitz, Ben O'Connor, Felix Gall, Lenny Martínez, Pablo Castrillo, Iván Romeo, Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda, Guillaume Martin, Neilson Powless, Michael Storer

Pick: Jonas Vingegaard