Matteo Jorgenson, Visma-Lease a Bike’s new star, continues to impress at Paris-Nice

Ahead of stage two of Paris-Nice, the Visma-Lease a Bike team bus was a picture of tranquillity and calmness as the Dutch squad began to set up in the paddock area outside the Château de Thoiry. 

There were a handful of fans hovering around the bus, admiring the Cervélo bikes being set up by mechanics, but few reporters lingering hoping to pick up sound bites from some of the team's biggest stars. 

A stark contrast to recent editions of la course au soleil in which bigger names like Jonas Vingegaard, Wout van Aert and Primož Roglič have all lined up for the Dutch super team. 

Meanwhile a few hundred metres down the paddock, the Bora-Hansgrohe bus was the complete opposite as fans congregated around the German team’s setup, hoping for a photo or an autograph from Ralph Denk’s new superstar, Roglič himself, after he joined during the winter. 

"Why, good morning guys!" Roglič called over as he rode past his former colleagues on the way to sign on. 

As things stand, Visma could be set to move back into the limelight at the French stage race, Matteo Jorgenson, their new American superstar, could pull on the yellow jersey if things go to plan in stage three’s team time trial on Tuesday afternoon. 

Jorgenson hit the ground running after joining from Movistar, impressing during Omloop Het Nieuwsblad before heading to France. The American was in the thick of the action during the early GC skirmish on stage one as riders duked it out for early bonus seconds. 

Mathieu Heijboer, Visma’s head of performance, told Cycling Weekly in Thoiry that the team were thrilled with the American’s first steps in his new surroundings and shared some insight into the process that eventually brought Jorgenson to Visma-Lease a Bike. 

"He did a great job. catching those seconds and staying out of trouble," Heijboer said as he reflected on Jorgenson’s start to Paris-Nice. 

"He's a very all round, high quality rider," he added. “He's good at a lot of things and yesterday that explosive effort on the climb was also a good sign. But of course, he will also be strong on longer climbs for us and he needs to be one of our engines tomorrow in the TTT. 

"We love those all round riders that are good in general classification battles but also in Classics."

Classics star in the making

Jorgenson was gradually developing a reputation for strong Classics performances at Movistar. He took fourth at last year’s edition of the E3 Saxo Classic before going on to star on the stage to the Puy-de-Dôme at the Tour de France. 

The American has also previously spoken of the personal investment that he’s made into developing his own performances, which Heijboer explained hugely appealed to Visma. 

He said: "There's always a big process going on until the actual signing of a rider. So first, of course, it starts a little bit with seeing their results, but you also hear other riders talking in the peloton, maybe some guys doing a strong move that nobody saw, but the riders in the peloton did see it for us. 

"When he [Jorgenson] started winning big races like the Tour of Oman, and he was very strong in Romandie one year but also he was very, very good in the Classics. That was then we knew that he would be a great asset for our team."

"We knew he could develop a lot"

"We also knew he could develop a lot because if you had spent so much time investing in your own career like he did. We can take away those extra cares, let's say, and make sure he can focus fully on training and recovering and we then take away all the extra energy that he needs to put out."

Heijboer explained that Jorgenson wasn’t the first American to have entered the team’s radar thanks to whispers from the bunch. 

"That's how things sometimes go," he said. “It's always easy to look at results and to just go out for the riders who are very promising with their results.

"But also when you hear the guys talking about a rider doing great efforts, that's already for us, let's say a small sign to look a little bit better at certain guys. 

"A good example is Sepp Kuss," he added. “He first came onto our radar when he just did a great effort, a little bit in the Tour of California behind the front group. 

"Then Grischa Niermann, our coach, said at the time ‘if you can close a gap from here to there, that means you must be very strong' and then we started looking into Sepp some more. 

"So that's how things can go sometimes for us."