Without a doubt, Jonas Vingegaard is the bookmakers' favorite to win Paris-Nice. Following him from a distance are his teammate Matteo Jorgenson, Joao Almeida, Alexander Vlasov, Brandon McNulty, Felix Gall, Ben O'Connor, Santiago Buitrago, Pavel Sivakov, and Mattias Skjelmose.

Paris-Nice started yesterday, and the first stage victory for sprinters went to Tim Merlier. The important stages, where the general classification riders will dictate the law, are the fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth days of the race. It's the first time since the 2024 Tour de France, and the first time ever in a short stage race, that Vingegaard and Jorgenson are racing together as captains. "Matteo and I both have captain status and we'll try to win as a team," Vingegaard said during the press conference. "Generally, we've shown we can handle multiple captains well, and we hope to do that here. I have a really good relationship with Matteo and I'd be happy if he won the general classification. I'm not so selfish that I always want to win. I'm happy when he wins."

Vingegaard is feeling good and strong, and in this Paris-Nice he's doing better compared to the Volta ao Algarve last February. "I hope I've improved a bit from Algarve. To be honest, I was very good in the time trial there, but if I can take another step forward, then I'll be really happy. Actually, I think my form is quite good. I haven't yet raced at my full potential this year, so I still think I can improve. I'm not yet at top form, but I'm not doing badly either."

Along with Vingegaard and Jorgenson, there are Axel Zingle (fifth in yesterday's opening sprint), Edoardo Affini, Bart Lemmen, Per Strand Hagenes, and Victor Campenaerts, who will work together with the two captains.

In Portugal, the Dane was relaxed and gave lengthy interviews, in which he described himself as an unusual rider, outside the standard mold, different from other champions who win in the World Tour when they're barely twenty.

"I was twenty-five when I got my big chance. By today's standards, that's definitely too late. For a long time, I was a guy with an underdeveloped physique, and as a U15 or even U17, I wasn't that good. Riders like Mads Pedersen and Søren Kragh Andersen had already won everything in those categories. Compared to them, I was at the bottom of the rankings."

Vingegaard's past is certainly unique, and he occasionally reflects on the periods when he worked at the ChrisFish factory in Halstholm, packaging fish products from 7:00 to 12:00, when he wasn't yet a professional cyclist and didn't know if he'd ever make it to the World Tour.

"Nobody would think someone who won the Tour had a part-time job in the fish industry. But then everything made sense: as a non-professional rider, I was bored. You train four hours a day, but you still have a lot of free time. As a professional, you could say: I'll rest, but as an emerging athlete, you don't race to live. I accepted a job to fill my day and earn some extra money. I needed a backup plan in case I didn't become a professional."

Today, Vingegaard is a different man from when he was the frail rider in youth categories, when stress would make him sick during races. "For a long time, I was too nervous during races. When I started racing, I often vomited before and during the race. The situation improved when I was fifteen or sixteen, but in my first two years as a professional, it was very difficult."

Last year, the two-time Tour de France winner had a bad accident while racing in the Tour of the Basque Country, and since that day, his thoughts always return to race safety.

"I have two children, and if they ever asked me about cycling, I would tell them no. Last year I nearly died, and we're too often in dangerous situations. Serious measures must be taken to ensure race safety."

Although they are different riders, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar are considered calculators, meaning men who don't race with instinct but do what their team cars tell them.

"Tadej has his style, I have mine. But sometimes I get annoyed when we're portrayed as calculators. We often say we have a plan because it's normal to have one, but other times we race following our intuition. We often say we prefer to follow others and then attack because we think it's the best solution at that moment. We're not machines and we manage the race following various factors."

For the Dane, after Paris-Nice, there will be Catalunya and Dauphiné and then the Tour de France. "The Tour remains our main objective, but we'll try to do well in all the races leading up to it."