"Wout van Aert is a bit further ahead than Jonas Vingegaard" but both are in contention for Tour de France confirms Visma's Richard Plugge
CyclingWednesday, 08 May 2024 at 11:30
How Team Visma | Lease a Bike will look at this summer's Tour de France is still something that is very much up in the air. After a spring that saw the team decimated with injuries, two of their biggest stars, Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard face a race against time to be fit for the Tour.
"Wout is a bit further ahead than Jonas. They are cycling again. Wout already more than Jonas," Team Visma | Lease a Bike boss Richard Plugge assesses of his superstar duos condition in an extensive interview with HLN. "Initially it was important for them to become healthy again. Now I'm happy they can do some things physically. Afterwards, they can think about when they will become athletes again. Only afterwards can we talk about a schedule."
After van Aert's Giro d'Italia debut was postponed following a crash at Dwars Door Vlaanderen that left the Belgian with a fractured collarbone, fractured rib(s) and a fractured sternum, Vingegaard went down hard in a crash at the Itzulia Basque Country, suffering a fractured collarbone, fractured rib(s) and most worryingly, a pneumothorax. "The way things are going now, in a week or two we can talk to them again as an athlete," Plugge says optimistically however. "With Wout, we have to see how we can plan the next week. As far as Jonas is concerned, the Tour is not out of the question for us."
After taking victory at the last two editions of the Tour de France though, Vingegaard won't be coming in as just an also-ran. "We will only go to the Tour with Jonas if he is 100 per cent," Plugge insists. "He is someone who picks it up quickly and is staggeringly talented. In a maximum of two weeks we will know the answer to whether the Tour is feasible. Not before. I still have high hopes for it."
According to Plugge, the reintroduction of van Aert and Vingegaard to the peloton, will not only make Team Visma | Lease a Bike stronger, but cycling as a whole. "With all due respect, it's great how Tadej Pogacar won Liège, but you were missing riders of his calibre who could make it difficult for him. For cycling, that has been a tragedy," he explains. "It didn't help any team that we sat and watched a monument three times where a rider rides away at forty or seventy kilometres before the end and rides to the finish on his own. Without Wout or Remco or Primoz or Jonas giving them a hard time."
"People want to see spectacle," Plugge concludes. "Forty-kilometre solos are nice once, but I think all the fans would prefer to see the battle until the last moment. I do think about that, because this was hugely damaging for cycling."
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- ^This x100
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But winning all Grand Tours by one team isn't hugely damaging for cycling, Mr. Plugge?
Not only is the answer "no," the comparison here is silly. Last year's Grand Tours were competitive races against full fields. The Giro came down to one of the most thrilling finishes in its history, and the Tour was a dead heat until stage 15. Even the Vuelta had its share of drama as the members of the same team worked through an unprecedented situation.
This year's major races have been terrible from a competitive standpoint. Strade, MSR, Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, LBL, and now the Giro have all had only one of the "galacticos," and with the exception of MSR, all have ended in blowouts. Long way to go in the Giro, but as long has he stays healthy Tadej will lead 20 straight stages and win with no real competition.
That is what is bad for cycling.
Can you expand on your thinking?
As far as I can tell, there was not a noticeable drop in spectators or interest once Visma achieved this once in a century feat which they or anyone else is very unlikely to repeat in the next decade bar my suggestion that a big enough budget could make something like that possible.
Pog is still as motivated as ever to return GTs to his name and is very likely to so why is this bothering you?
I also don’t understand this constant moaning about it being boring for the same entity to win regularly whether it be cycling, football, F1, whatever.
Firstly, it never seems to be boring for the winners and their fans, secondly, it never seems to reduce viewership, even long-term as witnessed by figures and financials from the eras of Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen in F1, Bayern in Bundesliga, Fergies ManU or ManC in PL
People still watch, in hope or out of not having better to do or to justify their wagering, or just out of routine or omg, imagine this, boredom?