The final pieces are coming together for the 2024 Jumbo-Visma outfit with their remaining signings and eventual team name for next season yet to be revealed.
The Dutch side were dominant throughout this season and took wins at all three Grand Tours, but Sporting Director Merijn Zeeman has expressed this unprecedented triple won’t be a goal for the coming year.
Zeeman also laid out the bare bones of a plan in conversation with NOS to achieve the only key objective missed by the Dutch team in their historic season, a win at either the Tour of Flanders or Paris Roubaix.
“Win three [Grand] Tours? That will no longer be the objective in 2024,” said Zeeman. “What was good enough this year will not be good enough next year.
“We have to realize that the competition does not sit still. We will really have to continue to evolve and innovate, otherwise, there will come a time when the rest will pass us by.”
Bart Lemmen was the most recent addition to the squad after Matteo Jorgenson and Ben Tulett joined from Movistar and Ineos Grenadiers respectively. And with the development team trio of Loe van Belle, Per Strand Hagenes and Johannes Staune-Mittet all stepping up to WorldTour level, the team’s roster is up to 27 riders.
Visma-Lease a Bike is reportedly going to be the team name as the Pon-owned leasing company comes in to bolster the team’s budget after the merger/takeover with Soudal-QuickStep failed to materialise.
“It’s not completely finished yet, we’re working on it. I’m still working on a few men. We expect to announce them in the coming weeks,” said Zeeman. “Enough has already been said and written, but I think Richard Plugge will soon come with great news.”
Flanders and Roubaix
Zeeman also relished the challenge the team faces to compete with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) if they are to win either of the cobbled Monuments in 2024 with Classics leader Wout van Aert.
“Pogačar and Mathieu [Van der Poel] in particular did not make it easy for us, to use an understatement. They were really a lot better than us in the Tour of Flanders,” said Zeeman.
“We have to come up with a trick to beat them. That is a nice challenge, that is also what sport is about. It is up to us to make a good plan in the coming weeks.”
Van Aert, a Flandrian himself hailing from Herentals, came closest to winning De Ronde in 2020 in a photo finish with Van der Poel, but since then has either been off the pace of his…
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