Widar goes too deep in battle with the big names in Algarve — and his team doesn’t mind one bit

The queen stage to Fóia produced a thrilling fight. On the slopes of the final climb, Paul Seixas, Almeida and Ayuso rode clear of the other favourites. Behind them, one rider came close to bridging across: Widar, the Belgian supertalent. He couldn’t quite close the gap, though.

In the end, he paid for that effort. Widar lost ground, latched onto the chasing group, and then had to let go there as well. He finished 19th, more than a minute down on stage winner Seixas, and looked completely spent at the line. “I can barely breathe,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws before disappearing into the team bus.

A disappointment? Not at all, says performance manager Aike Visbeek. “Because at this stage of the season, that’s not really what we’re focused on yet,” he explained. “If it was our priority, we wouldn’t have let him do such a long, solid winter with plenty of time to build training — and we would have brought him out earlier, in something like the AlUla Tour or the Tour of Oman, where he could have scored more easily.”

“We focus on other details,” Visbeek continued. “Positioning, for example. That’s where he first has to take steps at WorldTour level. Delivering Jarno to the foot of the climb in a good position meant our little train had to place itself next to those of UAE, Lidl-Trek and INEOS. I’d rather see him finish 19th with strong positioning work than steal a top result in a cramped, forced, ‘wrong’ way.”

That positioning was excellent: Widar was exactly where he needed to be. And so Lotto–Intermarché won’t be overly concerned about the ‘lesser’ result from their leader in Portugal. The Belgian team have been clear for years about their approach with the top talent: he will be developed patiently and progressively. And where that approach previously caused friction between rider and team, the two sides now seem aligned again.

Widar, in any case, is showing the right mindset. “Top riders like him are curious,” Visbeek said. “They crave extra knowledge, want to know how you see things and how you think about them. But they often have their own ideas too — and that makes for good discussions. That’s where we are now in this triangle: Jarno, me, and coach Oliver Delaey. We share our views harmoniously and then commit to the best plan.”