Uijtdebroeks' ordeal: "Last year's pains are back"

Rome, 17 March 2025 - A winter spent working on a physical problem that in fact limited the entire last season, the illusion of having solved everything and then the sad awareness that reality is not like that: this is what happened to Cian Uijtdebroeks and revealed by the person concerned, in tears, on the sidelines of the Tirreno-Adriatico 2025.  

The ordeal of Uijtdebroeks

While the almost contemporary Juan Ayuso he put his hands on the Trident put up for grabs for the blue jersey at San Benedetto del Tronto, the Belgian was licking his wounds, realizing that he had fallen back into the problems that had conditioned his 2024, with accompanying withdrawals before Giro d'Italia and then to the Return. "I've been dealing with the same symptoms as last year. My heart rate was 150, but I wasn't moving forward and I had that numb feeling in my legs again. I'm reliving exactly what happened to me in 2024 and it sucks. I thought I had gotten rid of it and now we have to start looking for a solution again". These are the harsh words of the rider of the Visma-Lease a Bike granted to the microphones of Spouse immediately after the shipwreck on the climb of Frontignano, which in fact shaped the final general classification of the Race of the Two Seas with the exception of the overtaking that took place in the last stage by Filippo Gana to the detriment of second place Antonio Tiberi. While the two Italians left the Tirreno-Adriatico 2025 with great sensations, for Uijtdebroeks it was a revival of what had already happened last year, apparently linked to the back and an incorrect positioning of the same on the bike that was affecting the nerves of the legs. Everything seemed resolved before the abrupt awakening of Frontignano. "The pain was there from the first meters of the climb. I felt exactly like last year, turned off, and I couldn't go on": these are the words, between tears, of the 2003 class, who at youth level had impressed by winning so much, including the Tour de l'Avenir 2022. Then the stormy transition, at the dawn of last season, from the then Bora Hansgrohe to the Visma-Lease a Bike, preceded by alleged poisoning within his old team during the 2023 lap, closed ateighth place.

Skjelmose's great fear

Meanwhile, almost simultaneously with the Paris-Nice 2025 the great fear of was consumed Mattias Skjelmose, who fell from third in the general classification due to a traffic island: a lot of fear, but no fractures and the worst avoided thanks to the helmet, as commented by the rider himself Lidl Trek on their profile Instagram. "The dream of winning was suddenly taken away from me. I took hits to my right knee, hip and back and they stitched up my elbow. This sport can be ruthless because everything can change in a second and in these moments you have to remember that overcoming everything is already a victory. Sometimes you fall and you have to know how to get up again, trying to always look forward".

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