An unfortunate season for Visma-Lease a Bike. Even in the fall that involved a large part of the group at the Tour of Dauphiné, the Dutch team saw a couple of its athletes involved, in this case Dylan Van Baarle and Steven Kruijswijk, who had to abandon the competition.
The winner of Paris-Roubaix 2022 has a collarbone fracture for which he will need to undergo surgery, while the expert climber suffered a small hip fracture. Participation in the Tour de France is therefore excluded for both. Visma thus loses two important elements to possibly deploy on Jonas Vingegaard, who is doing everything possible to be at the start of the next Grande Boucle.
“The road didn’t have much danger, but it was slippery. Dylan and Steven have fallen heavily and it is a source of regret for the team. We still have five riders in the race, Jorgenson can start the tough final weekend in a great position. We will keep trying: this is yet another bitter pill to swallow, but we must be resilient” says sports director Grischa Niemann.
Their partner Tiesj Benoot, however, is more drastic: “Losing them both is terrible, we had just finished a retreat in Sierra Nevada: it’s really bad for them to have to leave the last race in preparation for the Tour in this way“.
