"Inspiring and quite motivating" - Simon Yates looks to follow on the footsteps of Jonas Vingegaard and his coach
Cycling
Simon Yates raced with his twin brother Adam for many years at the Jayco team but both have now departed. In 2025, they find themselves in the top rival teams of Team Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates - XRG, both leading their teams at the Giro d'Italia and then supporting their leaders at the Tour de France. Simon talks about why he decided to switch to Visma and how he hopes to evolve from his partnership with Jonas Vingegaard.
"Maybe I'll do worse here, but I got the feeling I had got the best out of what I could do there. I was doing a lot of the training camps by myself, which is not a bad thing, and I enjoyed that freedom. But the sport is at such a high level now there came a point where I needed more input," Yates said in Visma's media day, as reported by Cyclingnews.
I didn't have the knowledge. I didn't know what to do any more. So that was also another reason to make the change, because at one point or another, it's never easy to be suffering on everybody's wheels." After seeing the evolution of Adam in the Grand Tours since joining UAE, it also gave motivation for this move. The Briton is no longer a solo leader, but he will still enjoy a fair share of leadership of his own.
Whilst Olav Kooij and Wout van Aert will chase stage wins, Yates will aim for the pink jersey, one that eluded him in 2018 when he arrived at the final week leading the race, with the likes of Wilco Kelderman and Steven Kruijswijk set to support him in the mountains. Even though it's a B-team, it will count on a ton of experienced and strong riders to back him up. It's a demonstration of power from one of cycling's top teams.
"I think a lot of WorldTour teams are close to each other now, it's just the finer details that separate the top ones from the others. This one [Visma] is very tightly organised, and the people here are very direct: this is how we do things, this is the way it's done," he continues. "It was the opposite at Jayco, where I had a lot of freedom and I enjoyed having that, for certain periods."
"But there came a moment when I was doing my own thing and getting the same results, so I needed a change. And that's where I thought – ok, let's try this. I don't want to finish my career and have any regrets. I wanted to be the best version of myself," he justifies as the main reason for joining the Dutch team.
Another is the hope of taking another step in his climbing performances, at age 32. For this, he links up with Tim Heemskerk, Jonas Vingegaard's coach. "It's one of the reasons why I am here, because I want to learn from the best. Jonas has shown himself to be one of the best riders in the world and I am also searching for that, I want to see if I can make that jump. So I made the decision to work with his coach."
As is the case with riders joining UAE, Yates has some important differences in his training methods over the past few months. "I will not go into excruciating detail, some things should be kept private, but it's definitely a different approach - everything from the timings of how much things are done to when to do them. That's a big difference, but it's nothing space age."
On Vingegaard himself, whom he'll race with at the Volta a Catalunya, and then again at the Grand Boucle, the Briton got a good first impression. "He's got a real attention to detail, I was not expecting that to be different but to see it in first person, that was inspiring, and quite motivating. Hopefully I'll pick up some things from him."
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- How many times have you looked at the perfect form of an athlete and marvelled at how easy that athlete makes it look when goes to work in his chosen sport? I marvel at Vanderpoel, Van aert, Pogacar and many many more. Cian is no different. He admires what those athletes do and it motivates him to be similar or better!1stpastthepost16-01-2025
- Why would he even mention Roglic? He can get 0 information from him and can't see how he's working and behaving. Makes 0 sensevappaxbipmv16-01-2025
- It might help to read it again. All Cian in that part is indicating is that he admires Roglic and Vingegegaard. This exact quote from the piece is really all you need to understand his thinking. "With Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard I have two great examples,"roadman5412116-01-2025
- That part isn't in quotation marks so the author came up with that. Second, Roglic winning at Visma doesn't help Cian at all, just because it's the same team. Froome also won the Tour riding for Sky and Ineos but that doesn't mean that the current riders there can help me (apart from G)vappaxbipmv16-01-2025
- Firstly, as far as I read it, the article only reports what Cisn said so the writer can’t be blamed for that. Secondly Cian rides for Visma, Jonas won and rides for Visma, Primoz rode and won for Visma, all he’s saying is he wants to follow by winning for Visma and he obviously feels it’s the right place for him to achieve it. Really don’t see much to get confused about, it’s a lot simpler and clearer than most of what I post, which incidentally isn’t intended for everyone, take what you will, ignore the rest is a good motto.Mistermaumau16-01-2025
- It's been like shooting fish in a barrel for the Portuguese anti-doping authority.
santiagobenites16-01-2025 - Then the article is stupid for talking about Visma's leaders in GTsvappaxbipmv15-01-2025
- Pain and death have long been distorted since the advent of mass gaming. Death is also a very ambiguous paradoxical topic religiously. I get that people get upset but when you pull your head out the sand and see what really goes on in the world, everywhere, anywhere at any time at every level, when you see certain ideologies, when you see what people do to each other, to kids for the sake of causes, emotions, perversion, kicks or money, the torture done by states, enemies, authorities or just sick individuals, this guy is not even a 6 on a scale of 10. To turn this into drama is like governments fighting plastic pollution with bans on single use straws. Please, these cases get treated, let’s focus more energy on the far worse ones that don’t. The last thing the world needs now is an army of Elons cherry picking examples of evil to hide the bigger picture. Flattening molehills on a mountain.Mistermaumau15-01-2025
- He’s just saying he wants to follow in the footsteps of someone like Roglic or Jonas, I doubt teams, races or exchanges have anything to do with his thinking.Mistermaumau15-01-2025
- He spent 0 races alongside Roglic, I don't understand what he's talking aboutvappaxbipmv15-01-2025