The Tour de France is approaching and the certainties at Visma | Lease a Bike remains very few. The crash at the Tour of the Basque Country by Jonas Vingegaard messed up the plans of the Dutch team who were betting everything on the two-time defending champion of the Grande Boucle. The Dane is training these days, but the sensations are obviously not those of the best days.
The sports director spoke in the Cycloo Wielercafé podcast Merijn Zeeman who explained: “It’s a very difficult puzzle. We have a lot of injuries, so we still have some work to do in the next week to fix things. Wout Van Aert is already far ahead, he has already raced the Tour of Norway, but Jonas was obviously in a bad way from the Tour of the Basque Country. Now he is training and can train as usual, but we will have another consultation with his coach about where he actually is. Because training is one thing, but being competitive at the Tour is another.”
Obviously, as specified several times, the objective is to start to win: if the chances aren’t there then it would be better to wait and start again from the Vuelta in August.
In conclusion: “We are not yet ready to say that he will be at the start if he has a chance to get on the podium. But next week we will take stock: will it go or not? How is he now? What should we expect and what can’t we expect? But we are now so close that we are gradually approaching the moment of: shall we go or shall we not go?“.
