Sepp Kuss predicts great year for Visma: Vingegaard succeeds in his Giro-Tour quest & Van Aert with Brennan dominate spring

Visma | Lease a Bike have already won 8 Grand Tours during this decade, cementing themselves as the one of the two major GC forces of the current cycling world (the other being Tadej Pogacar with 5). However their record at the Monuments leaves something to be desired as the Slovenian alone has won 10 while Visma as a collective have celebrated only twice, and both triumphs date all the way back to 2020. But Sepp Kuss believes 2026 to be the year of change.

In 2020, Wout Van Aert won the Milano-Sanremo before Primoz Roglic took one of the most viral victories ever at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Since then, it was mainly the Belgian who carried Visma's flag in Monuments, and he did so formidably with further 6 podium finishes (2x Sanremo and Roubaix, 1x Liege and Flanders), but ultimately always fell short to either Mathieu van der Poel or Tadej Pogacar.

This year, Van Aert should again return to chase that elusive cobbled Monument triumph, but he won't be alone. Visma seem to have found a potential successor to the 31-year-old in a decade younger Matthew Brennan who leapfrogged into the position of one of the Dutch team's main stars already in his debut season when he won a total of 14 races.

Kuss himself is not a big fan of racing the one-day races as he had only done three throughout his career. But speaking to Marca ahead of the season, he dared to guess who could take him the most wanted tropheys in 2026.

According to the American, Van Aert will be quick to recover from his ankle injury and would return to win both Milano-Sanremo and Tour of Flanders. Also for the third Monument of the season, Kuss expects the yellow-black bees to celebrate, this time through the 20-year-old Brennan.

The first non-Visma winner should then be Kuss' now former teammate Cian Uijtdebroeks who would take an upset victory at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, ending the two-year reign of Tadej Pogacar.

Moving onto the Grand Tours, Pogacar would once again walk away empty-handed, as Kuss predicts Jonas Vingegaard to successfully complete the Giro-Tour double. Vuelta should then go to Pogacar's teammate Joao Almeida according to the 2023 winner of the Spanish Grand Tour.

Finally, Pogacar will return to his winning ways at the end of the season with successful three-peat at the World Championships in Montreal and close off the year with his 6th Lombardia triumph in a row.

Do you agree with Kuss, or think the distribution of prizes in 2026 will be different? Let us know in the comment section!