"We shouldn't ever go to the sprint again" - After last year's Dwars door Vlaanderen blunder, Visma want to take solo win this time around

Team Visma | Lease a Bike rode a perfect Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2025, initially, by splitting the peloton and creating a selection with their three strongest riders, alongside Neilson Powless. However, they raced for a Wout Van Aert sprint win and the plan failed miserably. Team DS Grischa Niermann knows the team cannot race like that ever again.

"We're looking forward to racing. I think indeed, we have a very strong team there. Hopefully we can make the race, and we finish it off better than last year," Niermann said in words to Cyclingnews.

The plan might be the same, with Wout Van Aert being joined by Christophe Laporte, Per Strand Hagenes, Matthew Brennan and Edoardo Affini - a very strong lineup that antecedes the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but should have almost all riders at their best level.

But repeating the same sprint scenario is unthinkable. "We even have, I would say, to play it safer if you get into a situation like that. We shouldn't ever go to the sprint again, because if you arrive solo, you know you've won," he adds, not forgetting the tactical error of 12 months ago.

"We made a big mistake last year, and we took it with us, and we'll certainly not make that same mistake again. But, of course, it could still be that the race ends in the sprint tomorrow, and then we'll go for it, but if we have the opportunity, then it's better when somebody goes solo."

On that day, Visma was trying to help Wout Van Aert into a motivation-inducing triumph. For that reason, the team did not attack Neilson Powless on the three versus one scenario; and instead Matteo Jorgenson and Tiesj Benoot both paced and led out the Belgian.

Only in a two-up sprint, a leadout doesn't matter to much, the legs do, and the Belgian did not have them. The blunder cost what was a certain win otherwise, and saw Visma finish second, third and fourth out of a group of four. It is a day that rang bells all over the cycling world and is strongly reminded to Niermann into the race once again, to which he knew he had to respond.

"I think for you journalists, that it's a big thing, because we are going to do the Dwars door Vlaanderen again. But for us, it's been a year, we had some learnings from there; It didn't go well, and we went on from that, but it's not something that I need to highlight now today," he concluded.