{"id":372567,"date":"2026-01-16T03:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372567\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T03:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:50:07","slug":"you-have-to-choose-where-you-want-to-be-in-peak-shape-matteo-jorgenson-hits-pause-on-grand-tour-ambitions-as-he-targets-monument-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372567\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You have to choose where you want to be in peak shape’ \u2013 Matteo Jorgenson hits pause on Grand Tour ambitions as he targets Monument success"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s leading cyclist Matteo Jorgenson<\/a> has paused plans to target GC success in a Grand Tour for a tilt at a first ever Monument victory at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twenty-six-year-old Jorgenson signed a lengthy contract extension<\/a> with Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a> last summer, with the plan for the Idaho-raised rider to become one of the Dutch team\u2019s Grand Tour leaders.<\/p>\n

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But that ambition is on hold for the moment. Though Jorgenson will once again be a key domestique for Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> in the Tour de France<\/a>, his personal ambitions in 2026 will centre around one-day races.<\/p>\n

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The biggest being Li\u00e8ge, the final Ardennes Classics at the end of April. That means the 2024 winner of Dwars door Vlaanderen<\/a> will miss the cobbled Classics, as well as Paris-Nice<\/a>, the stage race he has won in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year I watched the Ardennes and I really wanted to be there,\u201d Jorgenson told a small gathering of press at Visma\u2019s media day in eastern Spain. \u201cI asked at that point in the spring last year if I could do the spring differently next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want to be good at the Ardennes, and to do that I think I want to go to altitude before then, so that forces me to skip the cobbled Classics.<\/p>\n

\u201cLi\u00e8ge is a race I\u2019ve done a few times and watching it in the past couple of years I always wanted to be there as those longer climbs are good for me, and I feel might be a little bit better than the Flemish ones.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI raced it a few times with my previous team [Movistar] and really liked it. It\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t like the Flanders Classics, but at a certain point you have to make a choice of where you want to be in peak shape, what you\u2019re targeting, and I wanted to try something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winning Li\u00e8ge is a mighty task. Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> and Remco Evenepoel<\/a> have shared the last five titles between them, and both will be present once again. But Jorgenson is ready to rise to the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m only 26 so I think there\u2019s some progression still to be had and this year I hope to definitely take more steps,\u201d Jorgenson continued. \u201cIt\u2019s important for me to step up this year and be a leader, especially in some cases in the spring when with some of the new guys I will sometimes be the rider who\u2019s been on the team longest.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Beyond the Tour de France, a space appeared to open up for Jorgenson to lead Visma\u2019s GC charge at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>. Currently, it is the team\u2019s plan to go with Wout van Aert and Matthew Brennan as co-leaders, with stage hunting the priority.<\/p>\n

Yet Jorgenson is set to dismiss that possibility, and will instead focus on the Montreal-held World Championships in September and then the season\u2019s final Monument, Il Lombardia. \u201cHopefully we can cover the base with another Monument, because I\u2019m assuming we will win one in the spring,\u201d he smiled.<\/p>\n

Jorgenson explained that the changes to his calendar came about from constructive conversations with team bosses: \u201cIt\u2019s true that the management sat down last fall and they thought a little bit about what we can improve, and they definitely realised I think they want to listen to our desire a little bit more this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see in the calendars that as riders we were given the choice to choose a little bit of our own calendar and they really listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grand Tour leadership, he insisted, remains a goal, but further down the line. \u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve set as an objective I\u2019d like to go for at some point in my career, and it remains to be seen if it\u2019s possible or not \u2013 you only know if you try and show up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d definitely love to have the opportunity to do that at some point. I\u2019m sure in the next four years we will find a moment where I can put a lot of resources into going for one and really try to be a GC leader in a Grand Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nLi\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge
\n<\/a>
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\nVisma-Lease a Bike
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"America\u2019s leading cyclist Matteo Jorgenson has paused plans to target GC success in a Grand Tour for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-372567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}