Major blow for Visma | Lease a Bike and Vingegaard: Kuss not fit enough to start, Lemmen his replacement

The Tour de France selection for Visma | Lease a Bike was in principle all set, although a change was made on Tuesday morning, according to a statement by the team on X (formerly Twitter). Climbing domestique Sepp Kuss, normally one of the key supporters of team leader Jonas Vingegaard, is not fit enough to start. Bart Lemmen will replace him.

The team website provides more details about the decision to leave Kuss home, who had previously been pulled from the Critérium du Dauphiné as a precaution due to not being fully fit and experiencing mild COVID symptoms. Initially, he seemed to be recovering well enough to contend in the Tour, but his recovery stalled in the past few days.

Only a year and a half pro, but after Kuss dropped out, suddenly off to the Tour de France: Lemmen's story

Team director Merijn Zeeman said, "This is of course a huge disappointment for Sepp. His contribution is always very important in the team, but of course he has to be completely fit. Unfortunately, we had to conclude together that that is not the case after that infection. He now needs to recover properly and will therefore not start. Fortunately, we have a good replacement ready with Bart Lemmen."

Zeeman praises Lemmen, who also recently featured in an extensive interview with IDLProCycling.com, though at the time, he hadn't been overly concerned with possibly participating in the Tour. "Even though Bart has only been a pro for about a year and a half, he has already shown himself to be a reliable and strong rider. He’s been developing rapidly and proved his capabilities earlier this year with several impressive finishes. He’s strong on the climbs and always ready to work for his leader, Jonas Vingegaard. I'm very confident in his abilities." The final lineup for the team, dubbed the killer bees, will include Vingegaard, Lemmen, Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte, Wilco Kelderman, Jan Tratnik, Tiesj Benoot, and Matteo Jorgenson.