Visma | Lease a Bike and Ineos Grenadiers suspended radio communications broadcast during Tour de France after stage 17
Cycling
After the seventeenth stage of the Tour de France, it appears that both Visma | Lease a Bike and Ineos Grenadiers have immediately suspended their arrangement to broadcast radio communications with the race organisers ASO.
With just three days left to go of the 2024 race, however, they’ve already cut the cables. "From yesterday we suspended it until after the Tour," Jasper Saeijs, marketing manager at Visma | Lease a Bike, told CyclingWeekly. "We had a lot of discussions about strategies being communicated, what is affecting the race and not, and we think we need to sort that out better, then we can look to the future."
A team of three people receive audios from the 15 participating teams and decide what should be broadcast on TV, with a delay of between 15 and 30 minutes. Saeijs said there wasn’t any specific incident in the last week that had forced the team to make their decision, but that "it was counting up every day, and we decided to just suspend and look after the Tour to see if it’s possible or not to continue, and also the way to continue."
He added: "We don’t really have a problem with ASO but we look at things differently. One thing is we can’t trust the process for the upcoming stages that they can make a good decision on what is strategy and what is affecting the race or not. We are still in favour of everything that can engage fans in the sport... we are really pro fan engagement... but it can’t affect the race and the race strategy, and in our opinion it did this too much."
"We are not the only team, there are more teams that don’t really like how it is going." Several sources confirmed to CyclingWeekly that Ineos Grenadiers have also revoked access, although there's not official confirmation. In addition multiple teams expressed their disappointment about the €5,000 they are given for handing over access to their team radios, but Visma insist that the financial remuneration was not a part of their decision.
Read also
Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- He is boring
leedorney08-11-2026 - To Twoje przemyślenia te bla, bla :)
Dariusz08-11-2026 - Uwielbiam patrzeć, jak wyjeżdża na czoło peletonu i zaczyna się rzeź...Dariusz08-11-2026
- Yeah, unreal.
parisbound0008-11-2026 - there needs to be space in life for pointless comments!Ketterechts08-11-2026
- That is a very lazy way of putting it but so far on this website it seems like everyone is happy to look at everything lazily, even things that annoy them intensely. All they want to do is state their feeling and position but ask most to analyse a problem or come up with solutions or improvements and you’re stunned by silence. Nobody even really knows how this all happens. It’s very simple and quick to just say the UCI did it but I bet you they didn’t, I bet you not more than 2 people were involved, more likely just 1. The UCI may be ultimately responsible but it is not their decision, this is about hierarchy, power and delegation. The fact that protest is possible also means it isn’t over and that MORE people could get involved for a thorough review which could throw up anything. It is highly likely it was a sole commissar who decided and has that power in a first round. Therein might lie the problem the UCI has to consider, is it acceptable to give so much authority to one single person when it is quite possible for them to have a natural bias or be too easily susceptible to imposed bias. Who is to say an individual in this position isn’t susceptible to collaboration with outside players with interests in the results, nations, families, teams, betting companies, etc. On the one hand we have sports where these problems have been worked on way more to reduce such problems, on the other hand we have sports with far stricter and more draconian rules not even concerning safety or obstruction that nobody really questions like false starts or stepping out of lane or zones in athletics. If cycling hastowork on itself, it would be good if protagonists (all kinds) would start doing a little more than just moaning over outcomes.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Yes, so why not make comments less pointless?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- What a race! I didn't expect Vanthourenhout to collapse like that, and Wyseure did take the fight to Nys, but there was no doubt at the end. I also wonder what Aubin Sparfel would be capable of were he to race in the elites now. In the U23 ranks he is making good work of Giel Lejeune, who himself is among the better riders in the elites, and a top 10 contender in the big races (3rd at Kleebergcross, 8th at Berencross and 5th at Heerderstrand). In the French Cup, Sparfel is significantly better than Romain Debord (8th at Koppenbergcross and 10th at the Euros) and Rémi Lelandais (12th at Koppenbergcross and 19th at the Euros).
Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - There really was nothing in it. Schreiber was so much faster, and Brand was fighting to stay in the wheel in the sprint. Schreiber did move a bit, but to say she closed the door doesn't make sense because Brand couldn't enter it anyway, abd she wasn't impeded.Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026
- He should have been allowed to go to Movistar. Right now both arent a good fit for each other and are just wasting each other's time and effortabstractengineer08-11-2026
Loading
🇫🇷 #TDF2024 Can you describe today’s stage in one emoji? Jan: 😝
1 Comments