Robert Gesink aware that Roglic's absence will hit Visma's win toll: "With Primož, you were sure that you could go to a race and have a guy for the victory"

Team Visma | Lease a Bike and BORA - hansgrohe have headlined this winters' transfers. The most relevant one was that of Primoz Roglic, and within the Dutch team there is knowledge that the team won't be able to score as many victories.

"We're totally aware that now Primož has gone that we're not going to be winning as much as we did last year, because Primož was just insane. Every race he started he basically won, so that's going to definitely be a loss in terms of the amount of victories we will get," Robert Gesink shared with CyclingWeekly. "Primož, and guys like that, I mean, there's only a few of them in the world. So it's not as easy as copying that. With Primož, you were sure that you could go to a race and have a guy for the victory. With other guys you might need a few years to get to that point."

15 out of Visma's 69 wins in 2023 came from the Slovenian, all throughout the year. It was a massive season for the Giro d'Italia winner who now leads BORA - hansgrohe with even higher ambitions. In Visma in the meantime, the team will continue to support it's current leaders, whilst developing talents such as Cian Uijtdebroeks and Olav Kooij who may be new sole leaders in future years.

"The team is trying to try to learn from that. From their mistakes perhaps, or do better. The idea of the team has changed from we are chasing the first to now to being chased," Gesink adds. "With bigger budgets coming in that's not always easy, in the future either. But for now, I think we have a really strong group of riders and also some young guys with great potential to work with."