Visma boss wants more Van der Poel - Van Aert; Pogacar - Vingegaard battles to increase sport's atractivity - "In order to compete with those other sports, we need to"

Richard Plugge is the main man behind 'One Cycling', a format to organize cycling in a completely different way with the goal of making the sport more attractive and create more opportunities for everyone involved. In recent words, he explained one of the most important factors behind the project which is the intention of having the big names racing against each other more often, get more exposure on the sport and create stars and attractivity.

The Dutchman, also boss of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, gives the example of how in the Netherlands cycling, despite being a very popular sport, has no comparison to the popular of football for example. "Back then, Joop Zoetemelk couldn't just walk down the street. That's not the case anymore. Tom Dumoulin can easily walk through the city centre of Amsterdam, just like Dylan Groenewegen," Plugge argues in an interview with Wielerflits. "One or two will think: 'hey, there he is'. But no one else recognizes them. That's the problem for cycling. We need to work on that."

Plugge is leading a project that amongst other things, looks to create a calendar of top races that is more tied together, change the formats of races in a different way to make them more attractive for fans on the road, and to convince riders to participate in more top races. It is met with some challenge, and also some pushback due to it's ties with Saudi Arabia who is behind part of the financial side.

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Whether this will move forward or not is something that should become more clear in 2025, and Plugge splits his attention between both his projects. He once again reiterates what he believes to be the importance of creating such a 'league'.

"By having them race against each other more often. By having them race against each other more often in a recognizable way. And not in unclear series and unclear competitions, which ensure that they are less often present in different places. That's my vision," he details.

It is not a complicated concept, but one that looks to boost the amount of battles amongst the top riders throughout the year. A good example to give is that Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar raced against each other at the Tour de France last season, and did not meet on any other occasion throughout the year.

"... In order to compete with those other sports, we need to get Mathieu to race against Wout more often. And Tadej Pogacar more often against Jonas Vingegaard," he says. "I could go on and on with a list like that. They should compete against each other much more often".

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