"Just here to ride the best possible Dauphine" - Bart Lemmen insists Visma aren't bothered by Tour fe France uncertainty

With the 2024 Tour de France just weeks away, we still don't really have any idea how Team Visma | Lease a Bike will lineup. Is Jonas Vingegaard going to recovered in time? Will Wout van Aert join the team? There are many unanswered questions.

For the Team Visma | Lease a Bike riders currently competing at the traditional Tour de France warmup, the Criterium du Dauphine, it would be easy to get caught up in the ongoing saga. One of those currently competing in France however, is Bart Lemmen and despite the prospect of a Tour de France debut potentially looming, the Dutchman isn't looking too far ahead just yet.

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"Of course I sincerely hope that Wout and Jonas are ready for the Tour. That would be the best thing for the team. But there's nothing I can do about that. I just have to make sure that I am always the best version of myself. So it's not that I really work on it every day, that's not the case," the Dutchman says in conversation with In de Leiderstrui from the Criterium du Dauphine. "Do we talk about it a lot among ourselves? That in itself isn't too bad.''

"We are just here to drive the best possible Dauphiné and that is what the focus is on," Lemmen insists. "In the background, Wout and Jonas are of course working hard with the staff, although that is not something that is constantly happening here in our Dauphiné bus. We simply have to make do with what we have. We can't make more of it, it's that simple."

At the Criterium du Dauphine, Team Visma | Lease a Bike have a two-pronged attack of Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson for the general classification. Early signs gave been positive too, with Jorgenson taking third place on stage 2. Whether they could contest with the likes of Tadej Pogacar over three weeks, should Vingegaard miss out remains to be seen however.

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Vingegaard and Van Aert both face a battle to be fully fit for the Tour