Jumbo-Visma's Richard Plugge: "We had been preparing for this Tour de France for almost a year"

Monday, 25 July 2022 at 16:00

The victory at the Tour de France was a long-term proccess which Jumbo-Visma carefully planned, and in 2022 they finally managed to achieve it after three years on the podium. Richard Plugge, team manager, has talked about the win after reaching Paris.

In a press release, Plugge commented about the team's success: “We had been preparing for this Tour de France for almost a year. We prepared everything down to the last detail. When I see how the riders have executed all these plans and scenarios, I enjoy that process the most. It brings tears to my eyes," he said. "The victory is nice and our goal, but I especially got goosebumps from what Primoz Roglic did for Jonas Vingegaard in the stage where Jonas won yellow".

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That day, stage 11, ended up being the most decisive of the race as Jonas Vingegaard took almost three minutes on Tadej Pogacar and jumped into the yellow jersey - which he would not loose afterwards. "It was so beautiful to see. The stage to the Col du Granon was the ultimate proof that we can achieve good results with plans made a while ago," Plugge described.

The win at the Tour was a plan formulated in 2013, and bolstered over the last few years with financial support from Jumbo and Visma. "The first years were a matter of survival. The most important thing then was ensuring we kept our team afloat," he said about it's beginning.

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"From those years on, we formulated the dream. At the time, we said that we wanted to be on the podium in the Tour in 2020. We already achieved that in 2019. Then we started looking further and we set new goals. It was the moment we said: we want to win the Tour. That has now been achieved," Plugge explained.

Asked if this is the end of a chapter for the Dutch team, Plugge responded: “No, this is the beginning. Of course we want to continue. We have reached the highest achievable goal, and it would be nice if we could do this more often".