{"id":69619,"date":"2025-08-15T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/69619\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T20:08:09","slug":"ive-been-working-towards-this-for-months-christophe-laporte-finally-back-in-saddle-at-cyclassics-hamburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/69619\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’ve been working towards this for months’ – Christophe Laporte finally back in saddle at Cyclassics Hamburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been ten long months since French Classics star Christophe Laporte<\/a> last pinned on a race number, but the wait will finally come to an end at the Cyclassics Hamburg <\/a>this Sunday.<\/p>\n

Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) has been out of the racing scene since ever he won Paris-Tours last October<\/a>, with tests in January showing he had cytomegalovirus meaning he had to battle a long illness before he could return to form.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old was forced to skip one key goal, the Spring Classics, and the former Gent-Wevelgem and Dwaars door Vlaanderen winner will, at long last, make his return in Germany’s biggest one-day race, the hilly Cyclassics Hamburg this Sunday.<\/p>\n

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Laporte will be joined there for Visma by Wout van Aert. <\/a> Following his participation in the Tour de France, including a spectacular victory on the last day<\/a>, the Belgian is making his return to racing in 2025 slightly earlier than expected after teammate and defending Hamburg champion Olav Kooij fell ill.<\/p>\n

“After a strong Tour of Poland” – winning stage 1 and then taking part in a break on the very hilly last day – “Olav was struggling with symptoms this week,” Visma Head of Racing, Grischa Niermann said in a team press release.<\/p>\n

“He ultimately proved unfit to start. We have a fantastic replacement in Wout. He’s very motivated to make it a great end to the season.”<\/p>\n

Van Aert himself described the addition of Hamburg, a 207 kilometre race where the repeated ascents of the Waseberg climb often shape the entire event, as a minor adjustment to his plans, but one about which he felt very enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

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“This is a WorldTour race that often turns into a battle between the sprinters and stronger Classics riders. My only participation, in 2022, showed that the course suits me.”<\/p>\n

While Van Aert, second in 2022 in Hamburg in a small group sprint behind Marco Haller, will be taking on the likes of the top favourites Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Laporte is simply happy to be there.<\/p>\n

The French allrounder described the lengthy recovery from the cytomegalovirus as “the most difficult period of my cycling career. I’d never experienced anything like it.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been able to train well this summer and I can’t wait to wear a number again. Building up my fitness wasn’t easy after such a long absence. I spent the last few weeks in Tignes with my teammates. It felt great to be part of the team again. I’ve really missed that feeling.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully, we can do well with Wout this year and I hope I’m good enough to help him and the team. Without race rhythm, that’s difficult to predict, of course. [But] The most important thing for me is that I’m back on the bike and will no longer have to just follow the team on television.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been ten long months since French Classics star Christophe Laporte last pinned on a race number, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-69619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69619","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=69619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}