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Visma-Lease a Bike (identified since 2019 as Jumbo-Visma until the start of the season) opened its 2024 account earlier this month when Dutch sprinter Olav Kooij gained the Clasica de Almeria in Spain on February 11.
Launched to the end line with a superb lead-out from Belgium’s Wout van Aert, Kooij started his celebration a bit too early maybe—however the 22-year-old had finished sufficient to safe the primary win of the season for himself and his workforce.
Van Aert added to the workforce’s early tally 5 days later, successful Stage 3 of 5 phases in Volta ao Algarve in Portugal, the one stage race he’ll full in the course of the first racing section of his season.
These have been victories that shall be forgotten after van Aert and the remainder of the workforce’s gifted Classics squad head to Belgium for the Classics in mid-February, beginning with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the opening race of the Belgian calendar and the occasion thought of by most pundits and aficionados to mark the “actual” begin to the season.
So earlier than the rubber meets the cobbles, it’s time to check out the Dutch tremendous workforce’s prospects heading into the 2024 season (on the lads’s facet a minimum of) and the riders anticipated to create (or play a hand in creating) a lot of the headlines for the workforce this 12 months.
However first, a glance again at 2023
The 2023 season was a record-breaking one for Jumbo-Visma’s males’s workforce. The Dutch squad grew to become the primary within the sport’s historical past to win all three grand excursions in a single season with Slovenia’s Primož Roglič successful his first Giro d’Italia, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard defending his title at the Tour de France, and American Sepp Kuss taking a surprise victory on the Vuelta a España, with Vingegaard and Roglič becoming a member of him on the ultimate podium. It was the primary time one workforce had swept all three podium spots in a single grand tour. It appears like a dream season—and in some ways it was.
However there have been some hiccups as properly. First, van Aert didn’t win both the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix—once more—persevering with a dropping streak within the cobbled Monuments that simply provides to the already immense quantities of stress on the Belgian famous person.
Then, the workforce’s earlier title sponsor, Jumbo, announced in the middle of the season it was pulling out of the game, leaving one among professional biking’s largest (and most costly) groups on the lookout for a brand new backer.
Making issues much more awkward, after the Tour de France there have been talks of possible merger with Belgium’s Soudal-Fast Step, a transfer that will have left a number of riders and employees on the lookout for new jobs whereas making a super-team in contrast to any the game has ever seen. Everybody was involved about what such a merger would have meant for the game, however fortunately it by no means got here to move after Visma stepped-up to fill Jumbo’s place and Lease a Bike got here in to cowl Visma’s. (Biking sponsorship typically works quite a bit like a giant recreation of economic Tetris.)
Then there was the Vuelta, which on paper regarded like a convincing success, however virtually didn’t prove that means after Vingegaard and Roglič (seemingly in battle with one another) couldn’t get their acts collectively to assist Kuss defend his lead within the Spanish grand tour. Just a few weeks after the race was over, we discovered that Roglič was leaving the workforce for BORA-hansgrohe. A coincidence? We don’t assume so.
And the drama continued properly into the low season. In December Richard Plugge, the workforce’s managing director, dropped a bombshell by saying that Belgium’s Cian Uijtdebroeks–thought of by many to be a future grand tour contender—was becoming a member of the workforce from BORA-hansgrohe. BORA promptly denied the rumors–which Uijtdebroeks’s agent disputed—and after just a few extra days of negotiations (which drew the ire of a number of the sport’s different workforce managers) and much more cash (we assume), the switch was accomplished.
What about 2024?
Properly, the workforce’s want record possible goes one thing like this:
- Win a 3rd Tour de France (ideally with Vingegaard)
- Win the Tour of Flanders and/or Paris-Roubaix (ideally with van Aert)
- Win as a lot as attainable alongside the way in which.
Easy, proper?
Properly, for those who’re Visma–Lease a Bike, the reply is a convincing, “Sorta?” Profitable races such because the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix isn’t straightforward, however whenever you’ve assembled a roster like Visma–Lease a Bike has, it’s straightforward to see why they fancy their probabilities in nearly any race on the calendar.
Who’s the Man of the Hour?
If you’ve gained the final two Excursions de France—and each instances finished so by defeating a legendary expertise like Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Workforce Emirates)—you’re clearly your workforce’s marquee rider. That’s the case with Vingegaard, who crushed Pog firstly of the third week to win his second consecutive Tour after which virtually gained the Vuelta a Espana (albeit on the expense of Kuss, his teammate).
Heading into 2024, Visma’s taking the “if it ain’t broke don’t repair it” method to the 27-year-old’s program, beginning with the Gran Camino on the finish of February, which he gained final 12 months. Then he’ll race Tirreno-Adriatico in March, the Tour of the Basque Nation in April, and the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June. In between he’ll spend heaps and many time at high-altitude training camps.
And the largest take a look at of Vingegaard’s profession will come at this 12 months’s Tour de France, the place he’ll face a well-recognized foe in Pogačar, a brand new foe (Tour-wise) in Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Fast Step), and a formerly-unofficial-but-now-official foe in Roglič, who was primarily compelled to go away the workforce to have any likelihood of successful a Tour de France of his personal. If he’s in a position to win a 3rd Tour in opposition to this stage of competitors, we would should name the Dane the very best pure grand tour rider of his technology.
Is anybody on the Sizzling Seat?
Let’s be clear: Wout van Aert is just not on the recent seat at Visma-Lease a Bike. He’s surely one of many 5 most gifted riders within the sport and nearly each single workforce within the peloton could be doing backflips to signal him away if that they had the cash and the prospect.
However van Aert has didn’t ship within the races he[[EMDASH]]and Visma[[EMDASH]]covet probably the most: the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix. It’s not fully his fault: in 2022 he was within the type of his life however examined constructive for COVID-19 just a few days earlier than Flanders. He returned in time for Roubaix, however was clearly a bit undertrained. But nonetheless completed second.
Final 12 months he was once more among the many prime pre[[no hyphen-]]race favorites heading into Flanders, however he banged his knee in an early crash and simply didn’t have the legs to observe assaults within the finale. He was higher at Roubaix, however flatted whereas attacking on the Carrefour de l’Arbe with about 17K left to race. He had an honest hole on the time, and we are able to’t assist however marvel if anybody would have caught him had he not punctured.
However whereas it’s not fully his fault, nice riders discover a solution to both overcome unhealthy luck or manufacture good luck of their very own. And that’s the place van Aert appears to return up brief[[EMDASH]]particularly in opposition to guys just like the Netherland’s Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Pogačar.
Van der Poel is surely van Aert’s largest nemesis: the Dutchman already lives in Belgium to keep away from paying Dutch earnings tax and it seems he lives rent-free in van Aert’s head as properly. A win for van Aert in both cobbled Monument would flip the script for the Belgian. However till that occurs, he’ll all the time face immense stress from the Belgian press, the Belgian fanbase, and himself.
That’s a whole lot of star energy. Does the workforce have any unsung heroes?
Like van Aert, Tiesj Benoot is aware of a factor or two about stress from the Belgian press. The 29-year-old completed fifth at his first Tour of Flanders in 2015[[EMDASH]]at simply 21 years of age[[EMDASH]]and was instantly anointed because the nation’s subsequent Tom Boonen. (Belgians love crushing the careers of younger riders by calling them the “subsequent fill-in-the-blank-with-a-Belgian-legend.”)
Except for successful Strade Bianche in 2018, wins have been few and much between for Benoot, who spent a pair lackluster seasons at Workforce Sunweb/DSM earlier than being correctly scooped up by Jumbo-Visma[[EMDASH]]who turned him into an elite jack-of-all trades, a “domestique deluxe” who can deal with himself on the cobbles, within the Ardennes, and within the Tour de France.
Robust and selfless, the Belgian has lastly tapped into a gradual stream of the expertise that peaked via earlier in his profession, and he’s comfortable to make use of it for the sake of Vingegaard and van Aert.
Who’s the workforce’s finest new rider heading into 2024?
All the time on the look-out for the following large factor (cough–Uijtdebroeks—cough), Visma has already discovered its subsequent Benoot in American Matteo Jorgenson. Like Benoot, the 24-year-old appears at house on all kinds of terrain, having already excelled on the cobbles and on the Tour de France whereas using for Movistar the previous 4 seasons.
Massive and powerful, he’s the right sort of rider for a workforce like Visma, and he ought to slot in immediately alongside van Aert within the cobbled Classics and Vingegaard on the Tour.
And we suspect Visma views him as greater than only a future super-domestique. Like most riders do after becoming a member of the workforce, he’ll enhance drastically with the help of the workforce’s coaches and physiologists. So there’s no telling the place his ceiling actually is.
Who’s the workforce’s largest departure?
It will need to have been laborious for the workforce to say goodbye to Roglič—who gained three Vueltas, a Giro d’Italia, and scores of different races for the workforce since becoming a member of it in 2016. The Slovenian was largely liable for ushering within the workforce’s transformation from being a extremely good workforce to being a real super-team and virtually gained the squad its first Tour de France in 2020. So it’s straightforward to grasp why the workforce graciously cooperated in facilitating his departure from the workforce in change for an additional likelihood to try to win the Tour de France.
However it was additionally a egocentric transfer, a real case of addition by subtraction. Just ask Kuss, who virtually watched his likelihood to win final 12 months’s Vuelta go up the street whereas Roglič refused to just accept the truth that his likelihood of successful a fourth Tour of Spain disappeared when the workforce despatched Kuss up the street in a breakaway in the course of the first week.
So whereas the workforce will miss the WorldTour factors that Roglič earned every season (sorta), they gained’t miss having to reconcile the ambitions of two (or extra) riders who can justifiably lay declare to the workforce’s captaincy in grand excursions.
Who’s the workforce’s finest up-and-comer or rookie?
Norway’s Johannes Staune-Mittet is likely one of the hottest younger skills within the sport, a rider who’s already gained two of the world’s three most prestigious stage races for Below-23 riders—the Ronde de l’Isard and the Giro Subsequent Gen—and completed second within the third—Tour de l’Avenir, which is sort of a mini-Tour de France for riders beneath 23-years-old.
There ought to be no stress on Staune-Mittet throughout his first full season with Visma-Lease a Bike’s WorldTour squad (he raced with their growth workforce from 2021 via 2023). But when all goes as deliberate, he’ll be prepared (alongside guys like Uijtdebroeks and presumably Jorgenson) to guide the workforce himself sooner or later. Within the meantime, we count on him to win a race or three when given the prospect—particularly in minor stage races that the workforce has to ship a workforce to whereas the squad’s heavy hitters are at coaching camps.
What about Sepp Kuss?
Properly, his Vuelta a España win final fall was definitely no fluke, however it does complicate issues for the American and his workforce. We have been hoping he’d get an opportunity to race the Giro d’Italia, the place he may have had the workforce all to himself. However the workforce clearly needs him at his finest for the Tour de France, the place he’ll be a helpful lieutenant (and Plan B) alongside Vingegaard.
However whereas Kuss has refused to downplay his probabilities of presumably successful one other grand tour—as he shouldn’t—we simply don’t see it taking place. Final 12 months’s victory—whereas not a fluke—was certainly a shock. And we doubt that different groups would have let him acquire a lot time in the course of the Vuelta’s first week had they identified he would nonetheless be in competition by the third. In different phrases, it’s one factor to win a race when nobody’s anticipating you to, it’s one other factor fully to win one when everyone seems to be.
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