Vader and Van Empel trim MTB ambitions on behalf of Visma | Lease a Bike: 'Accepting that was tough for a while'

Jumbo-Visma will transition into Visma | Lease a Bike as of January 1, and that also brings with it new goals. The team will focus less on mountain biking next summer, as Fem van Empel and Milan Vader shift their focus more to the road prior to the Olympic year. IDLProcycling spoke with both of them about their plans for 2024!

Mountain bike star Sophie von Berswordt will also compete on the road for the Dutch formation from January 1, as will Dutch promise Tom Schellekens. 'I hope I can continue to combine both disciplines, then it will naturally roll out in the direction that suits me best,', the youngster told IDLProcycling back in August. That side Vader and Van Empel have already chosen - at least for now - which requires some explanation.

Van Empel was announced last Thursday at the Visma | Lease a Bike team presentation as the spearhead of the women's branch for the coming years, including a renewed contract through 2027. Such a choice is never easy, because it is a decision you make for a number of years. I just enjoy being with the team, so I had no reason to leave. I am happy that I can still work with this team in the coming years," said the Brabant native after the cyclocross race in Antwerp.

In the field, she currently reigns supreme: Van Empel has so far won all eleven crosses in which she has competed. 'I really just want to get the maximum out of every race. If that's a second place, then that's a second place. So I'm not really concerned with the fact that I'm currently undefeated, I just want to improve myself," said the eager Jumbo-Visma lady.

Last summer she rode a combined road and mountain bike program, with the Giro Donne and the Tour d'Avenir des Femmes on the one hand and World Cups such as Leogang, Lenzerheide and Nové Mesto on the other. An Olympic starting ticket was not in the cards, so the choice for 2024 is more toward the road.

'I get all the freedom to do what I like best,' says Van Empel. 'Personally, I do want to look a little more specifically toward the road now, so mountain biking will maybe be a little more for the future. For the next few years I'm focusing a little more on the road, to see how it goes there. But mountain biking is just too much fun to quit. It just requires a lot of attention and energy. That can come at the expense of everything else," she points out.

Father had to accept that Paris plan was not going to work out

Vader was present in the same races as Van Empel, but the Tokyo Games number ten realized pretty quickly that Paris was unfortunately not going to work out for him after his bad crash at the 2022 Tour of the Basque Country. 'My goal was to get an Olympic medal in Paris, but actually that accident threw a spanner in the works. As a result, we were unable to get any points as a country and for myself it ruined my qualification: after all, you have to show something and meet the requirements of the NOC*NSF. I was still very far away from that.'

De Zeeuw, who won the Tour of Guangxi with flying colors in October, will leave his mountain bike aside next year. That's right. I really believed in the plan we had for Paris, but the accident changed everything. I had to accept that for a while, which was difficult," Vader, who will also start as Visma | Lease a Bike's leader in the Tour Down Under in January, is honest.