"There is a big question mark around Christophe Laporte" - Growing concern within Visma as former European champion remains unable to train
Cycling
Christophe Laporte has become a key part of Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Classics teams over recent years. As Opening Weekend kicks off this Saturday afternoon at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad though, the former European champion is a notable absentee.
Speaking on De Rode Lantaarn, Team Visma | Lease a Bike team boss Grischa Niermann addressed the growing concern surrounding Laporte and his lack of availability. "There is a big question mark around Christophe," Niermann admits. "He has been ill for a while. He is not super ill, but because of the virus he cannot train at the moment. I am not a doctor, but apparently there is no treatment for it either."
The absence of Laporte is definitely felt by Visma as well, despite the abundance of star power the team have to call upon, the Frenchman has, as mentioned, proved himself as a key cog in the Classics lineup. "It is a shame, because he is an important pawn," Niermann assesses. "Let's hope we don't have to miss him the entire spring."
In theory at least, Laporte is supposed to open his season at Milano-Sanremo later this month. Even this is by no means certain though. "Yes, it's all getting closer of course. If he can't train for much longer, it will be difficult. We don't get anything out of him if he only puts up a shirt number. He also has to be in order, and to be honest, it doesn't look like that at the moment," Niermann concludes. "But if anyone can get well quickly, it's Christophe."
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- His basic attitude always has been (and we know age often reinforces inherent values), if I’m going down I’m going to try taking you with me.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I know it’s tradition and nice but to make the discussion more interesting, if an Arkea rider had driven up to tell Alpecin or UAE to ease off for Mozzato or Vauquelin having a P, would they have been as gentlemanly?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Exactly, that easily makes for a minute at the front. You don’t see Pog cracking often either (less often than MVDP even) but when he does it’s lights out and over too. This is completely normal and to be expected, at the level of competitiveness all these guys are they only crack once they’ve pushed beyond their manageable limit and there’s no coming back from that. When your rival forces you into the red to keep or catch up, it’s over, in that respect, well done to WVA who seems to be world champion in staying just outside the red for as long as he can.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- If I remember well, Pidcock slowed, whether out of respect or strategically or just happy he could ease off a bit, only he knows. Your point?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.JoostMehrtens08-04-2025
- Just shows that LA is not truly repentant. JUSTICE was served. No winner, no second , no third on the podium for those 7 years. No real winners could be determined, ever. Lance got to keep most of his money , he really should can it . He is toxic to cycling.dave08-04-2025
- Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes riskHoopoeChai07-04-2025
- Even if not technically against the rules, this is just bad etiquette and frankly I hope the rest of pelaton remembers Arkea don't care about etiquette or honoring tradition which means they shouldn't benifit from it.HoopoeChai07-04-2025
- The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.acem8207-04-2025