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Three Belgians but no Dutch at the Tour de for Visma | Lease a Bike, the controversy is growing: “It says a lot about the state of our cycling”

“It says a lot about the state of our cycling”laments Michael Boogerd to our colleagues at Nieuwsblad. “This is not normal, it is even very unfortunate. This shows once again that Visma | Lease a Bike makes fun of the level of image or identity of Dutch cycling. Their only goal is to be the best team in the world. It’s become a business, how can we still call this team the standard bearer of Dutch cycling?”

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It must be said that Michael Boogerd was the spearhead of Dutch cycling at a time when “his” Rabobank (which became Belkin, Lotto NL and Jumbo over the years, to today be Vingegaard’s Visma | Lease a Bike) was the real barometer of cycling in the Netherlands. “During the Tour, the whole country was behind the team. I’m curious to see what happens next summer.”adds Boogerd, who today regrets that the number of licenses is decreasing every year: “Fortunately, we still have Mathieu van der Poel who will fight to win one or the other stage… even if after all the years he spent in Flanders, we can no longer say that he is 100% Dutch. .”

Between 1996 (Rabobank’s first year) and 2018, the team systematically fielded between four and seven Dutch riders at the start of the Grande Boucle. Since the arrival of Jumbo in 2019, the cap has been at three. There had already been a first controversy on this subject when Kruijswijk was the only Oranje aligned by Jumbo-Visma in 2022. Barring injuries (which notably allowed Lemmen to join the team at the last minute last season) , this will be the very first time that the team will send a squad made up of 100% foreigners.

On NOS, Tom Dumoulin also regretted this choice: “If you want to push young Dutch people to take up cycling, this is not the right way to do it.” Richard Plugge, boss of the team, made no secret of the fact that he attached little importance to these considerations: “I just want to win the Tour. If we have a better chance of achieving this with foreign riders, then so be it.”

And too bad for the national enthusiasm…

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