Bardet not impressed by Vingegaard, who is already eyeing upcoming battle with Evenepoel

Due to poor weather conditions, it was a grueling edition of Paris-Nice. Despite the queen stage being canceled, Vingegaard won the general classification with an impressive lead of over four minutes over second-place finisher Daniel Felipe Martinez (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)

The Visma | Lease a Bike team leader was therefore very pleased with this result. “I’ve finally managed to achieve the seemingly unachievable,” he laughs, referring to having missed out on victory twice in the Race to the Sun. The Dane was also surprised by the number of compatriots at the finish line. “Very special—it really touched me.”

Romain Bardet, however, remained unconvinced by the Dane’s performance in Paris-Nice. “What Vingegaard did wasn’t on the same level as Remco Evenepoel in Valencia, Isaac Del Toro in the UAE Tour, or, of course, Tadej Pogacar in Strade Bianche,” says the Frenchman.

Though he does have to make a caveat due to the bad weather. “In this Paris-Nice, there weren’t really any days with ideal conditions to put in a strong performance in terms of power,” he admits. Bardet, however, still sees a big gap between Vingegaard and Pogacar. “On Thursday, he didn’t beat everyone,” he notes, referring to the weaker remaining competition in Paris-Nice.

Normally, the Dane from Visma | Lease a Bike is the clear number two when it comes to general classification racing. “Just as Pogacar still stands alone at the top, Vingegaard also stands alone in his category. He’s there, and the rest follow behind,” concludes the Frenchman.

Visma | Lease a Bike team manager Marc Reef disagrees with Bardet. “Paris-Nice is always incredibly tough because of the weather conditions and the routes. And… first, go ahead and win a race, huh. Especially the way he did it—pulling away from Martinez by 0’41” in the final kilometer in Uchon, and over two minutes the very next day in Colombier-le-Vieux—was pretty impressive,” the team leader says proudly about his leader in HLN.

Though Reef is also curious to see how Vingegaard will stack up against riders like Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, Felix Gall, and João Almeida in the Tour of Catalonia. “And how he’ll handle an hour of climbing instead of twenty minutes. Normally, that should suit him even better,” he says optimistically.

The Dane himself is also looking forward to the Tour of Catalonia. “It’ll be interesting to see how my current form holds up there, in that strong field. I’m already in good shape, but there’s always room for improvement.” Vingegaard is also looking forward to the showdown with Evenepoel. “It’s always fun to race against him.”