"Hopefully he will snap in the third week" - Jumbo-Visma CEO reveals some of their strategy to drop Tadej Pogacar

Jumbo-Visma won the Tour de France for the second year in a row this summer with Jonas Vingegaard. Months of preparation preceded this, Ton van Veen, who has been the CEO of supermarket chain Jumbo since March, also knows. Prior to the all-decisive time trial to Combloux, he spoke to Financieel Dagblad about the success of the cycling team.

"At the beginning of this year, they analyzed the course and Pogacar in every detail with the question: how can we crack it?¨" Van Veen said before Vingegaard lashed out at the chrono test. "And they came up with the idea: if we force him to cycle just above his ideal heart rate for three weeks, hopefully he will snap in the third week. We'll see this afternoon."

"Ensuring that the preconditions for top performance are in order. That means a competitive, multi-year budget, but above all creating a winning team. A major breakthrough was securing two potential toppers for several years, Primoz Roglic and Dylan Groenewegen, while there was no financing yet," Van Veen sees the key factors behind the success of his team.

According to Van Veen, it is crucial to minimize the random factor in order to win in top sport. "Cyclists and skaters are constantly working on this. To the obsessive. All the details have to be right." In this respect, cycling is more progressive than football, for example, says Van Veen, who is also a supervisory director at PSV.