Jumbo-Visma's manager Plugge talks about long-term plan "to win races in an overwhelming way"

Jumbo-Visma have taken a step up this year in terms of focus, using their leaders racing together along the year to create a lineup that saw the very best riders present at the start of the Tour de France. Team manager Richard Plugge talked about the campaign.

In a column for RIDE Magazine, Plugge wrote that in 2013, "under the name Ride the future, we wanted to leave the past behind, start with a clean slate and give cycling back to the fans... That took time. This caused unrest, setbacks and deep depressions. First we had to survive, ensure that we got and kept the right to exist."

However as the years went by the team started to heavily contest Grand Tour with the presence of Steven Kruijwsijk, and later on Primoz Roglic who the team gathered from the continental ranks, who went on to become the team's new star in the late 2010's. The presence of Jonas Vingegaard soon came up to further bolster the team's chances in the Grand Tours.

“Last winter I called our intended strategy for 2022 in an interview with l'Equipe 'total cycling'," he said, explaining that it was a term "to win races in an overwhelming way, with a tactic that misleads others."

"Where Team Sky set a new standard with marginal gains, we have further professionalized it. And with attractive course tactics. Under the leadership of Merijn Zeeman, we worked very hard on this, and it worked," he concluded.

The Dutch team went on to win the Tour de France, the points classification and six stage wins despite the several abandons that it suffered along the way. They have positioned themselves atop the cycling world and will look to defend their title in the upcoming season.