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"I hope to be able to replace Primoz" - Jumbo-Visma's Zeeman to send young talents to Giro d'Italia, tells story on Remco Evenepoel rivalry
CyclingThursday, 09 November 2023 at 21:38
Merijn Zeeman has led Jumbo-Visma to tremendous success this year. But now comes a difficult task, how will the team improve, or how will the team manage the expectations of a team that has achieved something almost impossible to replicate in 2024.
"We want to send our younger talents to the Giro. Top ten would be very nice, but the overall victory is not realistic with those young boys," Zeeman said in the Met Open Vizier podcast. "This year we were able to win the three Grand Tours because we separated Primoz and Jonas. In itself it was not a goal to win the three Grand Tours. I hope to be able to replace Primoz, but there is no ready-made substitute. Without Primoz there are fewer difficult conversations, discussions and choices in the coaching group. He was so demanding that he lifted the team to a higher level."
As Richard Plugge had said previously, there is not yet a decision on whether Wout van Aert will race the Giro d'Italia, but that possibility is quite likely. The Dutch team is likely to send a team with little pressure to Italy, and then a block around Jonas Vingegaard who will try to go for his third Tour de France win.
"The more successful the season, the more uncertain I become that things would go well next year," Zeeman shares. After winning all three Grand Tours and "playing" with the Vuelta a Espana competition, the DS wants to make sure no-one in the team let's off the steam just because they were above the competition this year. "For this we will have to make further selections and we must ensure that there is competition from below, that Jonas does not feel comfortable and that he can lose his place if he performs poorly."
"For the time being I cannot name any hard objectives, but the structural goal of this team is that we want to write sports history," he said of an initial idea for the upcoming season. Riders are set to gather later this month. "This means that we are part of famous sports teams in the history of sports. You do this not only through victories, but also through the way you do something special that excites sports fans. 2024 is part of that."
To conclude, Zeeman tells a story of earlier this spring when Roglic and Remco Evenepoel were training for the Giro d'Italia in the same place: "It's always a hassle at the training camps, when you meet other teams. You can sit with two or three teams at the top of Teide. Evenepoel was also there for the Giro and then it was mental warfare. He tries to impress us, we try to impress him. Not a word is said to each other. Then the Giro has already started."
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- i don’t know nearly as much about bruyneel or hincapie as most of us do about lance, but we judge people by the company they keep. i hand no idea what psychological problems the other two have, but there’s gotta be something pretty severely wrong with them if they continue to choose to be close to armstrong.OCexile26-12-2024
- Ayuso and Rodriguez are only 22 and 23. Don't pressure it as they're still so sooo young.
James2631826-12-2024 - Not sure that can be true, in that USA Cycling is part of the UCI.acem8226-12-2024
- Oh, and yes: I am no psychiatrist/psychologist, but Bruyneel and Texas Turd are both sociopaths. It goes well beyond "protect my world and anyone would" that is the usual zeitgeist of their bullshit. No normal person has Bob Roll go at Greg Lemond with an audio recording device at Ron Keifel's bike shop...for example.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Funnier: this website keeps giving credo to their ramblings. In this case, why in any possible way would Boonen want to create a fantasy world to attach himself to these two clowns when more likely he would want to forget he was even there? Laughable.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- A sociopath is an informal term used to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a chronic pattern of disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024