NOS Cycling•today, 11:59
Visma-Lease a Bike was untouchable last season. The Dutch cycling team won the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta. Something like this had never been seen before.
And the battered team will not show something like that again in 2024.
Without Van Aert, Vingegaard, Kelderman and Roglic, last year’s winner, Visma will not compete for the pink jersey in the Tour of Italy, which starts on Saturday around Turin. “Our main goal in this Giro is to win stages,” says sports director Marc Reef.
“That is indeed a different approach than in all previous rounds. The ranking has always been the goal. And then you are mainly focused on losing as little time as possible and striking at X number of moments. Now we want to reach the final of attack a stage and win.”
Visma has lost a lot of weight due to all kinds of miserable falls. Wilco Kelderman and Wout van Aert broke their collarbone in Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen respectively.
Jonas Vingegaard, two-time tour winner, suffered broken bones, a collapsed lung and a lung contusion during the Tour of the Basque Country. Koen Bouwman is ill. And then leader Primoz Roglic also left for Bora-hansgrohe.
Van Aert and Vingegaard are moving forward, step by step. But will they be ready for the Tour de France in two months? “That will have to show itself.” Team leader Reef would rather not say more about it.
Visma’s plan B for the Giro looks like this: Olav Kooij is the leader in the sprint. Guys like Robert Gesink, Tim van Dijke (who makes his debut as Bouwman’s replacement) and Christophe Laporte are allowed to go on an adventure in the breakaway.
And the talented Cian Uijtdebroeks (21) is given a free role to see how far he can go in the rankings.
Sprinter’s leader
“We took a very realistic look: where are our options, who are the leaders, who is ready to carry the team? This year we cannot say that Jonas Vingegaard will win three rounds for us.”
“But we are proud that in Olav Kooij we have someone who emerges from our training team. It is nice to see that we can now go to a Grand Tour with him as sprinter’s leader. He has had a good preparation and is ready.”
The 22-year-old Kooij cleverly won two stages in Paris-Nice and has shown that he can also handle hilly courses. Or well, as Reef says: “There are hills. And there are hills. But a slightly more difficult finish just before the finish is certainly not disadvantageous for Olav.”
As a result, Reef has, in any case, no fewer than eight chances for a victory for Kooij.
“Without Wout van Aert we are missing a link for Olav and of course someone who can win stages himself. But with Laporte we have a good replacement. Olav’s support is really very good.”
A forecast then: how many stages will Visma win at the end of the stage? “Haha, well, we’ll certainly be satisfied with more than one. And then we’re not just looking at Olav.”
And briefly, about that other talent, Cian Uijtdebroeks, who came over from Bora-Hansgrohe this winter. How far can the Belgian go?
“It is difficult to really put a result on it. He is still very young. If you look at his seventh place in Tirreno-Adriatico this year, a place in the top 10 is possible. But if you look purely at the Tour of Catalonia, it will be again a difficult story. That’s where he found himself.”
“Cian can show what he has to offer in this Giro and, above all, learn and look around. It will be a voyage of discovery.”
