UAE top talent faces important and busy spring, already picks out Giro stage and recalls 'heart-stopping' moment

Christen is riding his third season with UAE Team Emirates-XRG. After developing at Hagens Berman Axeon, he made the step up to the WorldTour in 2023. In 2024, he managed to win three professional races, before adding two more victories early in 2025 in Mallorca and the Algarve.

One of those wins came on the Alto da Fóia in the Volta ao Algarve, where Christen managed to beat the likes of João Almeida, Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič uphill. “I think my win in the Algarve can really be seen as my breakthrough,” he said. “It was my biggest victory last year, also because I had quite a bit of bad luck afterwards.”

That bad luck came soon after. On 1 March, Christen crashed during the Faun-Ardèche Classic. “I broke my collarbone,” he explained. “After that, I also got ill two or three times. It was a rollercoaster, mainly going downhill. But that’s part of the sport: sometimes luck just isn’t on your side.” (“Ik brak mijn sleutelbeen. Daarna werd ik ook nog twee of drie keer ziek. Het was een rollercoaster, vooral naar beneden. Maar dat hoort bij de sport: soms heb je het gewoon niet mee.”)

Christen eventually returned to racing in the Ardennes. At La Flèche Wallonne, his presence caused some concern for team leader Tadej Pogacar, who later described it as a “heart-stopper”. “Jan is one of the biggest talents in the sport, but he is still young,” Pogacar said. “He broke his collarbone earlier in the season and I was actually a bit worried that the team selected him for La Flèche Wallonne. If he had crashed again on that shoulder, his season could easily have been over.”

Christen himself admitted that he went against medical advice. “The doctors said I shouldn’t ride, but I really wanted to,” he said.

This year, Christen hopes to be active again in March and April, months that were largely disrupted last season. “I’ve taken another step forward and that’s something I want to build on at the start of the season,” he said. “I feel very good this winter and I’m really looking forward to the first races.”

His programme starts in AlUla, followed by races in Spain, then the Drôme-Ardèche weekend. After that come Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milano-Torino. If Pogacar is at the start, Christen knows his role. “If Tadej is there, he is obviously the boss. Then I’ll do everything I can to help him,” he explained. “If he’s not there, others will get their chances too.”

After Milano-Torino, the focus shifts fully to the Ardennes classics with the Brabantse Pijl, the Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne. Liège-Bastogne-Liège is not on his programme. Instead, Christen will head to altitude training in preparation for his first Grand Tour: the Giro d’Italia. “I’m very happy that I get to ride the Giro,” said Christen, who will make his Grand Tour debut alongside João Almeida. “We’ll start with a young team and my main role will be to help the squad. If I get one or two chances myself, I hope to go for a stage win. I’ve already marked stage sixteen, because that one finishes in Switzerland.”

Brother Fabio Christen—currently training in Chile with the Q36.5 spring team—rode his first Grand Tour last fall with the Vuelta and can therefore tell his younger brother how to improve. “I've trained with him a lot and I can see that he's been able to take another step forward after the Vuelta. He did really well last year and I'm very happy for him,” he says of the number six in the Brabantse Pijl and winner of the Vuelta a Murcia.

We won't be seeing Christen in action in Flanders (yet), despite his cyclo-cross background and the increasingly demanding nature of those races. "I would love to try the Flemish classics. I've already raced there as a junior and the atmosphere is obviously great, but for now I'm mainly focusing on the Ardennes: the races that really suit me. But maybe that will change during my career."

First a full spring, the Giro and...? “After the Giro, I'll take some time to recover and prepare for the important one-day races in the second half of the year, including San Sebastian, Plouay, the World Championships, and Lombardy,” says Christen, who has a very nice program overall. “It's difficult to pick just one race, but I'm already looking forward to riding San Sebastian again. It's a race that I really enjoy and where I've already performed well twice.”