Fem van Empel and Milan Vader will put more focus on road in 2024 "to see how things go there" ahead of Olympic Games
Mountain Bike
Jumbo-Visma which turns Visma | Lease a Bike in 2024, will focus less on mountain biking next summer, as Fem van Empel and Milan Vader shift the focus more to the road ahead of the Olympic year.
"I am given complete freedom to do what I like most," Van Empel tells In de Leiderstrui. "I now want to look more specifically at the road, so mountain biking may be more of a thing for the future. For the coming years I will focus a little more on the road, to see how things go there. But mountain biking is just too much fun to stop. It just requires a lot of attention and energy. That can be at the expense of the rest," she points out.
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Vader had to forget his medal ambitions for Paris after a heavy crash at Itzulia Basque Country 2022: "My goal was to to win an Olympic medal in Paris, but that accident actually threw a spanner in the works. As a result, we were unable to obtain any points as a country and for me it ruined my qualification."
As a matter of fact, the Tour of Guangxi winner will put his mountain bike entirely aside in 2024. "That's right. That's actually been on my mind since last summer. I really believed in the plan we had for Paris, but that accident changed everything. I had to accept that for a while, which was difficult,"
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.
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