Jonas Vingegaard will make a return to racing sooner than expected next weekend, adding Paris-Nice to his schedule after a crash and illness disrupted the start to his season.
Vingegaard was initially set to kick off his 2026 campaign at last week's UAE Tour, but after crashing in training in an incident involving a fan, and then falling ill, he pulled out of the event in the Middle East, with his next race slated to be the Volta a Catalunya.
However, Visma-Lease a Bike announced on Monday that the Dane had added Paris-Nice to his schedule, so will be back in action next Sunday for the race that runs March 8-15, having "quickly shifted his focus".
"I am excited to be at the start of Paris-Nice once again. It is a prestigious race with a lot of history. As a team, we have a title to defend here," he said. Matteo Jorgenson has won the race for Visma for the past two years, but is skipping the race for a more Classics-focused spring.
"After crashing and falling ill, I took the necessary time to recover. Now I feel ready to start racing again and am looking forward to it after a long winter of training."
Vingegaard is racing both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France this year, and his withdrawal from the UAE Tour threatened to leave him with only a week of racing ahead of starting the Giro.
It is not clear at this stage whether he will still line up in Catalunya after Paris-Nice, but it at least gets his season underway sooner than the end of March as he builds up to the Giro Grande Partenza in Bulgaria.
Vingegaard has started Paris-Nice the last two seasons, though never won it, with last year's participation ending poorly as pulled out after crashing whilst wearing the yellow jersey, injuring his wrist and later being diagnosed with a concussion that was missed during the stage.
Though Vingegaard won't face the Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) level of competition he was hoping for at the UAE Tour, it will still be a tough GC challenge in Paris-Nice, with Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), Oscar Onley (Ineos Grenadiers) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) among the expected starters.
He will also get the chance to race the team time trial on stage 3, which will be key ahead of the TTT that opens this year's Tour de France in Barcelona.
