Tour debutant Lemmen (Visma | LaB) on the world’s biggest cycling circus: "Jumped right in and went full throttle"

Bart Lemmen has stormed into the cycling world like a whirlwind. The former soldier has quickly 'climbed' from the Continental Dutch VolkerWessels Cycling Team (in 2022) to the highest attainable cycling level, where he now represents top team Visma | Lease a Bike. Add to that the fact that the 28-year-old Dutchman is participating in the Tour de France in his first WorldTour year, and you have a magnificent development. IDLProCycling.com spoke with him!

Lemmen's story is well-known and often told. The man from Utrecht might never have thought it possible, but he is now representing the killer bee formation in the Tour de France, where the in-form Lemmen's role is to provide significant support to team leader Jonas Vingegaard. When this website spoke with the ex-soldier at the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June, he didn’t want to get ahead of himself and think about a potential Tour selection, which eventually came about due to Sepp Kuss’s absence.

"I have no experience riding grand tours, but I was well prepared for this race," he told our on-site reporter during La Grande Boucle. "Especially for the chaos that would ensue, haha! It’s incredibly cool to be here and to be part of this top selection. And in the biggest race in the world. I’m very happy with that."

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Helping Vingegaard is central to Lemmen’s Tour debut

In short, Lemmen is full of enthusiasm about his role in the world’s biggest cycling spectacle. "My role will be the same every day: positioning the leaders and doing the preparatory work so that everyone can perform their tasks well in the finale," he said, mainly referring to his work in service of the Danish title defender.

"It’s actually very strange to be here, since I only learned relatively shortly before the start that I would be participating," Lemmen also shared. "In a way, I’m glad I wasn’t focused on it since January, and that for me, it was just a matter of jumping right in and going full throttle! It’s obviously very special, with everything that surrounds the Tour. But at the end of the day, it’s just a race like any other, where the goal is to be the first to cross the finish line," said the realistic rider.

In terms of stress management, it was probably better that Lemmen only heard about his participation in the Tour circus relatively late. "But let me put it this way: I don’t find myself very stressed about it. I just do my thing and want to be there for the leaders. In this race, I am as motivated as I would be in a race like Veenendaal-Veenendaal in the Netherlands. That’s how it is," he concluded on a similarly realistic note.