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Battered, bruised, and buoyant riders across Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, and Trofeo Alfredo Binda experienced the full spectrum of the unrelenting toll of professional racing.
From passionate celebrations from Magnus Sheffield and Elisa Balsamo, to tearful exits by Cian Uijtdebroeks and painful crashes by Paul Magnier, raw emotions were on full display in a wild weekend of racing action.
No one could keep their emotions in check this weekend. That’s why cycling is such a compelling sport. No filter. No holding back.
Yet this past weekend served as a stark reminder of cycling’s brutal, beautiful, and sometimes cruel nature.
For every champagne-soaked winner at Paris-Nice or Alfredo Binda, there’s a peloton littered with disappointment, battered bodies, and broken dreams.
That’s simply the nature of pro racing, because everyone knows they will lose more than they will win.
Here’s a look at the weekend’s most poignant moments, where passions ran high and the emotions spilled out:
Sheffield tears, Jorgenson satisfaction
Sunday’s Paris-Nice finale had an American stamp as Matteo Jorgenson won for the second year in a row and Sheffield attacking to his first WorldTour win.
For Sheffield, the victory carried deep emotional weight. Having crashed on the same corner where Gino Mäder lost his life in the 2023 Tour de Suisse, he dedicated his win to the late Swiss rider.
“The most important person I want to dedicate this success to is Gino Mäder,” a tearful Sheffield said at the Paris-Nice finish line. “It’s been almost two years. I never imagined I would be able to win a race after what happened that day.”
Sheffield pushed through doubts of confidence to claw his way into the winner’s column for the first time since his breakout 2022 rookie season.
“I’ve been second so many times now. It’s my first victory at the WorldTour level,” he said Sunday. “In cycling it’s just so hard to win any race. It means so much.”
, – #ParisNice pic.twitter.com/8j5fjbJjhz
— Paris-Nice (@ParisNice) March 16, 2025
Jorgenson was equally magnanimous at the line Sunday in Nice after rising to the occasion to win for the second year in a row. Brutal weather and the early exit due to injury from Jonas Vingegaard saw the American rise to the challenge at Paris-Nice.
On Sunday, he was isolated without teammates but packed the legs and the head to withstand the attacks to further consolidate his position as a GC player inside the Visma-Lease a Bike bus.
“I’ve been thinking about this week for the past four months already. This is such a huge relief,” Jorgenson said. “I have to credit my team, everyone was so focused and supported me so well. I’m just super happy to have won Paris-Nice twice now. After this, I’m going to sleep for a week.”
The two Americans — who raced together as juniors — proved that persistence can pay off.
Uijtdebroeks: The suffering never ends
Cian Uijtdebroeks saw his high hopes for Tirreno-Adriatico shatter into heartbreak. Targeting a top-10 finish, he believed he had finally moved past the setbacks that plagued him last season.
But reality struck hard when could not match the pace and abandoned Sunday’s final stage after struggling all week.
“It is a replay of what happened to me last year. That sucks,” Uijtdebroeks told Sporza. “My heart rate was at 150, but I wasn’t making any progress. That dull feeling in my legs is back.”
The Belgian prodigy came out of the off-season hopeful that he’d put his health problems in the rearview mirror, but the symptoms came roaring back.
“I thought I was done with it, but now we have to start looking again,” he said breaking into tears. “It was there from the first meters of the climb. I felt exactly the same as last year, dull. I couldn’t go anywhere. It’s back again.”
It’s not looking good for Cian Uijtdebroeks…
After having suffered yesterday, the young Belgian is already at the back of the race, and struggles to hold on #TirrenoAdriatico @CA_Ita pic.twitter.com/6hRL9499It
— Tirreno Adriatico (@TirrenAdriatico) March 16, 2025
“His morale is now below zero,” Visma-Lease a Bike sport director Maarten Wynants told Sporza. “It’s far from all roses and moonshine. He’s having back problems again, but it’s hard to pinpoint the exact issue. First, we wash away this disappointment, then we look further.”
Hope springs eternal in cycling, at least in the short term.
Balsamo and Vos, two ends of the spectrum
Trofeo Alfredo Binda saw some intense racing Sunday, with Elisa Balsamo kicking to her third career win in the Italian classic after fending off relentless attacks from Demi Vollering and the peloton’s top riders.
Fans often forget that cyclists are humans, too, and Balsamo had a pack of friends and family cheering her to victory on home roads.
“I’m speechless. It was honestly one of the hardest races ever for me, the last two laps were crazy,” Balsamo said after the win. “Now I know every single meter of the race. Today, a lot of friends and all my family were there, they were pushing me in the last climb, every 10 meters there was someone, and I’m so happy.”
Marianne Vos was a touch bitter after kicking to fourth in her road season debut — after Pfeiffer Georgi was relegated to 16th — and expressed a mix of frustration and optimism for what’s to come.
Like any GOAT, anything less than a top result is a disappointment.
After good work from Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Vos got boxed in and missed out the chance of opening up her engine.
“It’s a pity that I just came up short in the sprint, because I would have liked to take a nice place of honor here”, Vos said.
“Nevertheless, I am happy with the feeling. A first race like this is always a bit exciting. We tried to stay sharp for the final, in which there were a lot of attacks. Although the result could have been better, we can take this into the coming weeks.”
Spoken like a true pro.
San Remo outsiders Magnier, Stuyven touch pavement
Crashes never feel good, especially just days before Milan-San Remo and the season’s first monument.
Two San Remo outsiders — former winner Jasper Stuyven and Paul Magnier — were involved in a high-speed pileup in Sunday’s final sprint at Tirreno-Adriatico. Fortunately, both escaped with some brutal scrapes and bruises, painful as that is, but nothing is broken.
“It was a bit stupid. A few guys weren’t paying attention and rode into me from behind,” says Stuyven. “Very unfortunate. My injuries are not too bad, but it was a hard blow to my pelvis and head. Hopefully it’s not a concussion … I had a good night with only some bruises left and right. I’ll take one extra day to recover before preparing La Primavera.”
Stuyven komt daags na crash met geruststellende update, ook bij kamp-Magnier geen grote zorgen https://t.co/Jc0CutmxIJ
— In de Leiderstrui (@IndeLeiderstrui) March 17, 2025
Magnier crashed on a descent earlier in the stage and the young French phenom left the race cut up and in tears. After an initial check, the damage also seems to be limited, but he crossed the line in tears, covered in horrible cuts and abrasions.
Soudal-Quick Step reported that “a more serious injury has been avoided.”
Both riders are expected to start at Milan-San Remo, but their crashes are far from ideal preparation for the season’s first major one-day race.
Skjelmose: ‘Cycling is relentless’
Perhaps no rider personified the unpredictable nature of racing than Mattias Skjelmose at Paris-Nice. The Dane was flying high, fighting for a podium spot when disaster struck with 50km to go in Saturday’s stage.
He clipped a traffic island and hit the deck so hard he was out of the race. Luckily a hospital checkup revealed no major injuries, but months of hard work to prep for Paris-Nice was gone in a flash.
“Cycling is a relentless sport,” he shared on social media. “One day you feel great, the next everything can change in a split second. But you have to remember that the battles to overcome setbacks are just as important as the victory itself.
“In the end, cycling is like life itself – an unpredictable battle where sometimes you win and sometimes you learn to get up after falling. Now it’s about looking forward and recovering as soon as possible.”
In the face of constant setbacks, it’s important to keep an eye on the positive.
Van der Poel: ‘The victory is my form’
Two superstars — Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel — left Tirreno empty handed but quietly confident for the challenges ahead.
Those two are in the elite club of riders who expect to win every race they start. That comes with huge pressure, and for riders like Pidcock and Van der Poel, the headlines are usually bigger when they don’t win.
Though both left Italy without a stage win, both showed menacing signs of bigger things to come. Sometimes upward momentum is just as big as victory for the frontline favorites.
“The most important victory is that I still feel good, especially after the weather of the past few days,” Van der Poel told the Belgian media. “I had a few good days, but it just didn’t work out. An extra stage win wouldn’t change my palmarès much, but I still would have liked to win.”
With Milan-San Remo on the horizon, both Van der Poel and Pidcock know that winning on the biggest stages is more important than anything.
