Visma-Lease a Bike have dropped a huge hint regarding their team selection for the upcoming Tour de France with suggestions that reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert will both be selected for the Dutch squad.
A photo shared on the team’s social media accounts suggests that both Van Aert and Vingegaard will be ready to start the Tour in just 12 days time. Christophe Laporte, Matteo Jorgenson, Tiesj Benoot and Jan Tratnik are all pictured in the photograph alongside the duo.
The group are training at altitude in Tignes, Visma’s final camp before the French Grand Tour.
The race will get underway in Florence on 29 June. Much of the discussion in the build up to this year’s race has been centred around whether Vingegaard will be fit enough to ride after his horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April.
The Danish rider’s coach, Tim Heemskerk, previously told Cycling Weekly that the central aim in the last eight weeks was to have Vingegaard fit enough to join the team’s final altitude camp before the Tour in Tignes.
Since then, Visma-Lease a Bike have batted away enquiries regarding Vingegaard’s progress in his return to fitness.
Both riders suffered an array of horrific injuries in falls in the Basque Country and Dwars door Vlaanderen respectively. This included a collapsed lung for Vingegaard and broken collarbones and ribs for both.
Sepp Kuss and Wilco Kelderman are expected to complete the team’s lineup when it is fully confirmed in due course.
Vingegaard was in hospital for a lengthy period after his high speed crash and needed surgery to repair his injuries. He was only able to begin riding his bike again in early May.
His coach and Visma-Lease a Bike boss Richard Plugge both previously said he will only ride the Tour if he was fully fit and ready, but the photograph suggests that it is now likely he will be selected.
Van Aert missed both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders after coming down in Dwars door Vlaanderen, he also sat out the Giro d’Italia. He is expected to target medals in the Olympic road race and time trial in Paris this summer, but is likely to make the squad due to Visma-Lease a Bike’s continued injury crisis.
Dylan van Baarle and Steven Kruijswijk were both initially expected to be part of Visma-Lease a Bike’s selection, but both riders were injured in a crash at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné. Kruijswijk’s injuries included a fractured pelvis and collarbone.
Kuss abandoned the Dauphiné towards the end of the race with the team citing his Tour preparation as the reasoning behind his withdrawal.
Fellow American Jorgenson, who has enjoyed a stellar start to his Visma-Lease a Bike career with wins at Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen, could be called upon to lead a GC push if for whatever reason Vingegaard is not selected, or he is unable to mount a challenge for the podium once the race gets underway next week.
