Wednesday Affini and yesterday Campenaerts. The entire Visma-Lease a Bike is for Jonas Vingegaard. When Vingegaard has teammates of this caliber preparing the attack on the climbs for him, the Dane becomes unbeatable again.

And Victor Campenaerts, a great time trialist, already the Hour Record holder and currently an indispensable teammate of the Dane, explains clearly: “The plan was executed exactly as we wanted. First of all it was a very hard start. And then immediately Affini set a devastating pace, keeping the breakaway within reach. Yes, our plan was indeed to tackle that very steep climb at full speed and try to… take everyone by the throat. Well, it was quite thrilling to follow the battle on the radio. It could have been a tough fight on that climb, but then Jonas destroyed everyone. And 20 km solo is not so normal for him, when we're not talking about the final climb».

Campenaerts is 34 years old: in 2016 he raced for Lotto-Jumbo, the first embryo of the Visma powerhouse, and since 2025 the Belgian has returned to wearing the yellow-black jersey. This is how he frames Vingegaard: «I see him very relaxed since the December training camp and he feels ready. And clearly we came to Paris-Nice not just to rack up race kilometers or anything like that: it was to come here and give our all. Jonas feels very good in training, he has prepared well for this race. I won't race Catalonia with him, but I can't wait to join him in his major objectives, the Giro and the Tour. Things are going very well, Vingegaard is in excellent form and it's very beautiful to race this way».