Visma | Lease a Bike will be without Axel Zingle until 2027: 'I have no choice'

Axel Zingle came close but just missed out on victory in the Route d'Occitanie. The French rider from Visma | Lease a Bike finished third in the opening stage, behind Thibaud Gruel (Groupama-FDJ). A very tough period lies ahead for Zingle. We won’t see him in action again this season after the French stage race.

Zingle started too far back to win. “There’s always room for improvement when you don’t win,” he tells DirectVélo. “I’m a little disappointed, but I only have myself to blame, because I knew I had to be in the best possible position for the 600-meter turn. It got a little chaotic; we took the lead a bit too early, and then it was up to me to get into the right wheel, but I hesitated—I messed it up by not daring to put in the effort.”

The sprinter praised the work of Tim Rex and Loe van Belle in the final kilometers. “But then I made the wrong decisions myself. Because of that, I had to start my sprint from very far back to make up ground later on. It was hard to imagine that I would win under those circumstances, even though I had a good sprint at the end. I should have believed in myself more.”

After these three days in France, we won’t be seeing Zingle in a race for quite some time. The 27-year-old from the Vosges will undergo surgery on his iliac artery in July, from which he’ll need a long time to recover. This also explains his inconsistent performances at Visma | Lease a Bike: after some great years at Cofidis, he hasn’t yet managed to take the next step.

Zingle is deeply disappointed. “This is my last race; I’m having surgery. I won’t be competing in the French championships—my form isn’t great anyway… So that’s it. I have to do it; I have no choice. I won’t be back this season. There’s no point; it’s better not to rush things. After all, it’s major surgery.”

That’s why the days in the Route d’Occitanie are especially valuable, as the young sprinter still hopes to win a stage before he has to say goodbye to the peloton for good. “I’m trying to enjoy it despite everything. That’s why I would have loved to win: it could have helped me stay positive in the coming months, which will undoubtedly be long.”

Let’s hope things will go better in 2027. Meanwhile, time is running out. “I still have a contract for next year, but I definitely want to do better. Of course, the team expects more from me, too. Since I joined the team, I’ve had a bit of a rough time. I need to stay focused and hope things go better next year,” Zingle concludes.