01/01/2024

"There are more opportunities for me at Lidl-Trek" - Sam Oomen compares Visma departure to swapping Barcelona's bench for Ajax's first team

Whether under the guise of Jumbo-Visma or Team Visma | Lease a Bike, the roster they can boast reads like a cycling all-star team. This can make it difficult for those in the second string to shine however and as such, Sam Oomen has departed for pastures new at Lidl-Trek.

To best describe the situation he found himself in at Visma, Oomen has come up with a football analogy. “I was a normal domestique, and I’ve made the comparison with football, that if I was at the biggest club in the world, Manchester City or Barcelona, for example, then I’d be sitting on their bench. Sometimes I was needed in the second half, and I’d come on and not being outstanding but not make any mistakes either," he tells GCN. "Now I’ve moved to, let's say Ajax, and hopefully, I can have a few more minutes and hopefully have a goal or two and set up some assists. There are more opportunities for me at Lidl-Trek."

Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Lennard Hofstede retires with immediate effect

Although Oomen leaves Team Visma | Lease a Bike on good terms both rider and team agreed a parting of ways would be best. "Jumbo and I thought that at this point, and at this moment in my career, it was a good time to leave because Jumbo was and is a team of such champions, and to be honest I was a decent rider but not an exceptional one,” he explains.

"I’ve had harder decisions to make so once this offer came I was pretty sure about it. I had some nice talks here and there but this move felt immediately right. I could feel that the team had the right fundamentals, from the riders and the staff. It’s a good sign when several riders have stayed here for multiple years,” Oomen says of Lidl-Trek. “I still think that I can improve though and, I think that I can have an important role here. We have big captains in Tao Geoghegan Hart and Mads Pedersen but if I can have a role to support them into the finals of big races that would be super special. I want those opportunities. So it’s maybe more of a super domestique role than a domestique role like I had before."