"It's up to us to figure out a way to beat Pogacar again" - Visma | Lease a Bike hope Jonas Vingegaard will retake the Tour de France throne in 2025

2024 was a Tadej Pogacar year and not even Visma | Lease a Bike could do anything about that. Despite the heroic effort to prepare Jonas Vingegaard for Tour de France after serious injuries, he had to settle wit title of 'the best of the rest'. But this year can be different.

"Our biggest goal is to win the Tour de France again," confirms Grischa Niermann, Head of Racing at Team Visma | Lease a Bike, in a press release. "Besides that, we also hope to fulfill our dream by winning the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but it makes sense that the Tour de France will be our main goal. We already managed to win the Tour twice in our existence. We have strengthened ourselves on several fronts, so we confidently look forward to the season."

"It won't be easy, but it will be an exciting challenge," he continues. "It's up to us to work out a plan to achieve that goal. In 2022 and 2023, everything went superbly. We also had a good plan ready last year, but there we faced a very dominant Tadej Pogacar next to all the bad luck we had ourselves."

But the year starts with the Giro d'Italia where the team will play the card of sprinter Olav Kooij, supported by all-rounder Wout Van Aert. For the GC, they'll bring Simon Yates who was already close to winning the Corsa Rosa in 2018: "My biggest goal in 2025 will be the Giro. It's a race I have a lot of memories of - good and bad - so it inspires me to go for it full force again," Yates confirms.

Yet it's obvious that the pressure to perform will be at the Tour de France, where Visma | Lease a Bike need to retake the throne after Tadej Pogacar swept the race in 2024. "I can't wait to be at the start of the Tour again," the two-time winner Jonas Vingegaard says. "It is the race that means the most to me. It is therefore my goal to win in for the third time. I will do everything to be at the start in my best possible shape."

At the end of August, Vingegaard will also make his appearance in the Vuelta a España, the last grand tour on the cycling calendar. The Vuelta in 2025 packs as many as ten uphill finishes. In the successful 2023 for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, the Dane already managed to finish second there.