In 2024 Team Visma | Lease a Bike barely reached the cobbled monuments with any of their initially planned riders. It was a disaster situation with several of it's leaders either injured or ill, and 2025 has not started off the best way. After Dylan van Baarle's injury at the Tour Down Under and Christophe Laporte's illness, now
Niklas Behrens will also miss the Opening Weekend due to a fracture suffered at the UAE Tour.
The Dutch team is losing riders yet again at an alarming rate and is already down three important men for
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this next Sunday. Behrens raced the UAE Tour and in the final day, was involved in a crash that also involved Chris Froome and Arvid de Kleijn. All three riders suffered fractured collarbones when the peloton hit a road divider that took many riders down and destroyed Froome's bike. Behrens, the under-23 World Champion, is in his under-23 season and has been racing in the Middle East, getting rhythm for what was supposed to be his European World Tour debut.