Add to that the disappointing performance of the defending Vuelta champion, Sepp Kuss, who finished 14th, more than 20 minutes behind the red jersey winner, former Visma rider Primož Roglič, and you have a pretty good definition of the word disaster.
Kuss came down with Covid in the Critérium du Dauphiné and did not ride in the Tour of France, which doesn’t really explain his poor form in the Vuelta. In any case, it was just one more race to forget for the team that won all three Grand Tours in 2023 and filled all three steps of the podium in that year’s Vuelta. Both feats were unprecedented in the history of the sport.
Having fallen from such dizzying heights to such painful depths, Visma–Lease a Bike must surely be anticipating next year with a vengeance. And vengeance is really the operative word here. The team has something to prove, especially in the Grand Tours. To that end, they have so far made two significant signings for the near future, grabbing the excellent climber Simon Yates from Jayco-AlUla and the speedy all-rounder Victor Campenaerts from Lotto Dstny.
Yates is 32, won the Vuelta in 2018 and has taken 10 Grand Tour stages in his career. Campenaerts is also 32 and remains an exciting rider, even if he has lost some of his pace. Their role with Visma will likely be as Grand Tour domestiques in the team’s battle to renew the gloss on its reputation. More signings are surely to come. But who can they sign to replace Roglič, who was their iconic rider for years and was instrumental in Vingegaard’s two Tour de France championships?
In another step that could have consequences for future Grand Tours, they have moved four young riders from their development team to the World Tour squad, including the 21-year-old Tijmen Graat, who won the mountains classification in this year’s Tour de l’Avenir.
Speaking of Vingegaard, reports indicate that he has expressed the desire to go for the Giro-Tour double next year and duplicate Tadej Pogačar’s feat from this year. According to Cyclingnews, the Gazzetta dello Sport – which is owned by the company that organizes the Giro – “Vingegaard would like to make his Giro debut and the team are seriously considering the idea.” And Het Laatste Nieuws reported that the Dane has “reportedly indicated internally that he would like to ride the Giro.”
That was news to Visma, whose communications manager told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, “We haven’t even started the evaluation of this season. I don’t know where this is coming from. It is very surprising.”
If the reports are true, they reveal a remarkable competitive fire on the part of Vingegaard, who clearly has a score to settle with Pogačar. Finishing second in the Tour this year was clearly not good enough for him, though it was a remarkable performance just 10 weeks after his horrific crash in the Tour of the Basque Country and without any preparatory racing.
It’s also surprising that the team has not yet analyzed the season. What is there to analyze beyond those crashes? I’m exaggerating, of course. The year wasn’t a total tragedy. Visma–Lease a Bike won 31 races and stages this year, nine by Vingegaard and eight by its world-class sprinter Olav Kooij. However, in 2023 the team won no fewer than 69 races, including the three Grand Tours and numerous lesser stage races. That would have been a hard act to follow, bad luck or not.
I’m curious to see what role the 25-year-old American Matteo Jorgenson will play next year in the team’s plans. This year he won the prestigious Paris-Nice and the Dwars door Vlaanderen, after van Aert crashed out. And he was invaluable in supporting Vingegaard in the Tour. Could he be a rider for next year’s Vuelta? He is an excellent climber and a terrific time trial rider, finishing fourth in the Tour’s final-stage ITT, beaten only by Pogačar, Vingegaard and Roglič. And he finished second in the Critérium du Dauphiné, only 8 seconds behind Roglič. He only needs to improve a little to become a Grand Tour podium candidate.
Hopefully, Vingegaard and van Aert will fully recover, physically and mentally, from their run of painful misfortune and Kuss will recover the form that made him the best mountain domestique on the road. It would be great to see Pogačar and Vingegaard – and UAE Team Emirates and Visma–Lease a Bike – go at each other in the Giro and the Tour at full strength next year. At their best, these riders and teams have no equal in the Grand Tours.
Cycling needs for Visma to be back at its best. A sport is only as great as its strongest competitors and its fiercest rivalries.
