Fabio Jakobsen reflects after 2.5 months with Visma | Lease a Bike: 'You always want more'

"I'm satisfied, but my legs are a little sore," Jakobsen said, summarising how he felt after his first race for the yellow-and-black team.

“But I’m in high spirits and ready to keep working hard in the coming period. I think it went well, but not great. In elite sports, I guess you always want more, but I’m fully motivated to keep building on this.”

Jakobsen immediately earned his team’s trust in his first race, as he explains in the podcast to Andries Lamain and Stef Clement of the NOS.

“That’s cool, of course, but it takes some getting used to. I obviously don’t know those guys as well as they know each other, but I already considered it a great honor that they chose me to lead out the sprint.”

Matthew Brennan, among others, supported Jakobsen. “He really wanted to help me. If you watched the final, you could see him looking for me, too. I was just a little too far back, and I have to be completely honest—I was actually already very satisfied that I’d made it through the hill section well,” said Jakobsen.

“That’s been different in the past: back then, I’d often find myself playing catch-up.”

Jakobsen was in the mix at the end of the Münsterland Giro. Afterwards, he called it his best race in two years—which must surely be attributed to Visma | Lease a Bike.

“Every team is different," he said about the training approach.

“It’s more about working on my weaknesses so I can ultimately use my strengths, rather than just being the sprinter who has to sprint.”

In 2.5 months, he has already made good progress. “But we need to do even better—that’s for sure. Maybe push it a bit further, but that’s up to the performance division at Visma: to come up with a customised plan for that,” said Jakobsen.

“The sprint feels fresh, the wattages are measurable, and so is the top speed in training, but training isn’t a race. In the last kilometer, I took the final turn alongside Cees Bol, who moved up to join Olav Kooij and took him with him. I didn’t have that extra energy.”

"I definitely hope to remain active on the WorldTour for another five years or so," Jakobsen said. "So now it’s important to take a step in the right direction. We’ve seen in recent years that cycling is getting faster and faster; everyone can ride harder for longer."

"In the sprints, you see a lot of guys who are also semi-classic riders, and I want to develop in that direction as well.”

"With the knowledge Visma has about how to perform in the spring classics and in Grand Tours as a sprinter or classics specialist, I’m already reaping the benefits. We’ve only been at it for 2.5 months, so I’m really looking forward to being part of the team in China and taking another step toward the winter season there as well,” he continues.

During the colder months, Jakobsen can mostly be found in Spain. “To be able to complete those training blocks and days without being hampered by the weather, while still getting some uphill work in. That will always be my weakest link, and I need to minimize it. Especially if I want to sprint more often, I need to improve in that area, so we’re going to work on that again,” said the Dutchman.

"I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe 15th place isn't much to many people, but the last time I won was over 2.5 years ago at the Tour of Turkey. My last really good sprints were in the 2024 Tour. Since then, there haven’t been many, until now,” he concludes.