Terrible year Visma | Lease a Bike reflected by uninspired Vuelta performance Kuss: "They really had no alternative"

It is worth saying again: 2024 was not the year of Visma | Lease a Bike. Before that, it seemed so powerful. A new master plan for tour wins a well-thought-out path for Wout van Aert towards Monuments and Giro, and an even more powerful group across the board, which should deliver more than ever. It was pretty disappointing, or is it not that bad?

In the spring, almost all the big guns on the team suffered bad luck and crashes. Sometimes, these got in the way of a good result; sometimes, they were so serious that they required a drastic adjustment to the year's schedule. Despite this, Visma | Lease a Bike still finished third in the number of wins. Can you then speak of a bad year?

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Visma | Lease a Bike at the head of the pack

"If Roglic leaves and Vingegaard and Van Aert crash badly..."

In Themove, Johan Bruyneel addressed those figures. "If you consider that Primoz Roglic left and Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert crashed badly more often than not, those numbers are not so bad. They were the reference for the other top teams, and beaten anyway by UAE Team Emirates and maybe soon by Lidl-Trek," the Belgian opens.

Spencer Martin complements him and points to the Vuelta. That grand tour painfully refers to Bruyneel's passages. "They knew in advance that Sepp Kuss would not win that grand tour. But, they just had no other option." Although Van Aert won three stages, the yellow shirts never played a role in the GC. "All those problems were concealed because they also used to have Roglic. And maybe the UAE will have to deal with that, too. How long does Juan Ayuso want to ride in that role with that team?"

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