Christophe Laporte

Laporte was signed by Cofidis as a sprinter and used as one for most of eight seasons there. His first professional win came at the Tour de Vendée in 2015, a bunch finish in La Roche-sur-Yon, and his early Tours de France were spent working for Nacer Bouhanni. A change of management in 2018 broadened what the team asked of him, and he won Tro-Bro Léon that year with an attack six kilometres from Lannilis.

Sixth place at Paris-Roubaix in 2021, in the wet October edition won by Sonny Colbrelli, was his first top ten at a Monument. He left Cofidis for Jumbo-Visma that winter and won the opening stage of Paris-Nice within weeks of arriving. The team used him on the cobbles and in reduced sprints rather than flat-out bunch finishes, and he handled long classics distances better than his Cofidis record suggested.

At the Dutch team he rode as a finisher and a lead-out for Wout van Aert. He won the stage into Cahors at the 2022 Tour de France and the overall at Danmark Rundt, then took silver behind Remco Evenepoel at the World Championships in Wollongong. In 2023 he won Dwars door Vlaanderen alone, beat Van Aert in a two-up sprint at Gent-Wevelgem after they went clear on the Kemmelberg, and beat him again for the European title in Drenthe.

He missed most of the 2024 classics to illness and abandoned his Giro d'Italia debut, then sprinted to bronze behind Evenepoel and his compatriot Valentin Madouas at the Olympic road race in Paris. He beat Mathias Vacek to win Paris-Tours that October. Cytomegalovirus, picked up in January 2025, cost him the spring classics and the Tour de France. He returned in August and was beaten in the sprint from the front group by Matteo Trentin at Paris-Tours.