Steven Kruijswijk is optimistic about Visma | Lease a Bike's future: "The team must continue to develop no matter what. We can't dwell forever on what happened in 2023"

For Visma | Lease a Bike not many things have gone right in 2024, with illnesses, injuries and crashes plaguing their season. This is comes a harsh reality-check after dream 2023. Steven Kruijswijk thinks the team mustn't look at the past success and instead focus on continuous growth both; in terms of development approach and technical aspect.

"The secret of this team is that we started at the bottom. Our dream was to climb all the way up. We needed a performance-oriented policy for this, but also the material and the riders. That path was then taken and has been expanded enormously. I hope that I have made my contribution to this. In the beginning we pushed ourselves on material and nutrition. We wanted to take that to a higher level and we certainly succeeded," he says on team website.

"The team must continue to develop no matter what. We can't dwell forever on what happened in 2023. Other teams would then pass us. They want to dethrone us anyway. There is always room for improvement, in terms of talents and developments. We have to look for what makes us even better."

Kruijswijk is clear about his own role. He wants to guide Jonas Vingegaard to another Tour victory. "Yes, I hope to be able to play a supporting role in this. I also hope to pass on my experiences to the young riders."

As far as Kruijswijk is concerned, his expectations for the future are hopeful. The foundation is strong enough for that. "I think that in five years we will still be one of the best teams, that we may even be the team to beat. And that we can look back at all the wonderful things we have won."