Already winner of the Tour d'Italie Espoirs, the Alpes Isère Tour and the Tour du Val d'Aosta last year, Jarno Widar will continue one more season at Continental level. A choice explained by the ambition to become U23 World Champion in Rwanda next September. “Without this goal, I would have already decided to completely join the professional level”he indicated to DirectVelo on the occasion of the presentation of the Lotto team.
The 19-year-old rider will have a program quite similar to that of 2024, with only two appearances in the ranks of the ProTeam, at the Ardèche Classic and the Drôme Classic. With the development team, Jarno Widar will participate in three more professional races: the Classic Var, the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes and the Coppi and Bartali International Week. The rest of his journey will take him to very high-level Class 2 races: Circuit des Ardennes, Liège-Bastogne-Liège Espoirs, Flèche Ardennaise, Ronde de l'Isard, Tour d'Italie Espoirs, Tour du Val d' Aosta, World Championship in Rwanda and European Championship in Ardèche.
A winter soap opera in the Dutch-speaking press, his departure from RedBull-BORA-hansgrohe will therefore not have taken place. The opportunity for him to look back on these moments. “It's not a very complicated story. Other teams showed interest in recruiting me. I logically listened to what they had to say. I very quickly felt that I had to stay at Lotto . In the newspapers, I read at that time that I was going to sign elsewhere. Every morning, my mother came to tell me what she read, but I remained calm. wanted to do.” He chose to extend with Lotto until 2027, with promotion to the ProTeam next season.
