"Winning Roubaix remains the great dream of the team": Visma backs Wout van Aert to save his spring at Paris-Roubaix

The spring cycling season is rapidly coming to a close, and for some of the biggest teams in the professional peloton, the pressure is reaching a boiling point. If a top-tier squad arrives at the final cobbled Monument of the year without a massive victory to their name, the entire season can feel like a disappointment. For Team Visma | Lease a Bike, the entire weight of expectations now rests firmly on the shoulders of a single Belgian superstar.

Visma | Lease a Bike has officially announced its lineup for the 123rd edition of Paris-Roubaix. The team is putting all of its chips on Wout van Aert, making him the absolute and undisputed sole leader for the Hell of the North.

The team has faced a frustrating setback in the days leading up to the race, as the UCI recently banned the use of Visma's tyre pressure system. Despite that, Van Aert is heavily motivated. He has secured strong placements at Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders recently, but he views the upcoming cobblestones as his final real opportunity to truly save his spring campaign with a massive Monument victory.

"I always feel a huge motivation approaching this race," Van Aert stated the day before the race in quotes gathered by CyclismActu. "This will be my seventh participation, but Paris-Roubaix remains special. It is the nervousness and the unpredictability that make this event so beautiful. I have felt good since the Italian races and I am determined to seize this last opportunity for victory this spring."

Everyone in the cycling world knows who the main targets are this weekend. Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel have dominated all the monuments the last years. Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Grischa Niermann is completely realistic about the massive challenge his team faces, but he also believes that the punishing nature of Paris-Roubaix changes the rules of the game. He expects a much tighter race than what we saw on the steep hills of the Tour of Flanders.

"Pogacar and Van der Poel are without a doubt the big favorites, but on this terrain, the gaps between the riders will be smaller than during the last classics," Niermann explained.

To beat the two biggest stars in the sport, Niermann knows his team cannot just rely on pure physical power alone. Instead, they need to use their numbers and team tactics to their advantage. Van Aert will be closely supported by Christophe Laporte and the highly talented Norwegian youngster Per Strand Hagenes.

"Our strength lies in the collective," the sports director continued. "Alongside Wout, Christophe Laporte and Per Strand Hagenes can play important roles in the outcome of the race. Winning Roubaix remains the great dream of the team."

For the young Per Strand Hagenes, the team's mission is incredibly clear. He knows his main job is to survive the early crashes and chaos, making sure he is still there when the race reaches its most critical moments. The Norwegian rider is fully confident in his team leader's ability to match the speed of the other top favorites when the real attacks begin.

"My goal is to play a role in the finale to support Wout," Hagenes added. "I think he can compete with the other favorites, he has shown some very good things in recent weeks. At Roubaix, the race often explodes from very far out now, so I am preparing for a long and exhausting battle," the Norwegian concluded.