In 2025, Grisha Niermann will take on a new role within the Team Visma | Lease a Bike. While he was until now chief sporting director of the Dutch team, the German moved up the ranks after the departure of the sports manager Merijn Zeeman. If he did not directly take his place, he is now part of the quintessential team taking charge of pole sport at Visma | Lease a Bike. He is now the “Head of Racing”.
Video – Grischa Niermann in interview at the start of 2025
A more important position
A new role which he returned to in an interview, since he is now taking a step back to take care of the recruitment, negotiations and the racing program of the men's WorldTour team.“I was already doing it, but Merijn Zeeman was the one in charge and now I'm the one in charge“, he declared, also specifying “I will always be in the car, less than I was used to, but you will always find me in the car“.
Before talking about the new recruits: “I think we have a lot of great additions to the team especially with Simon Yates, Axel Zingle and Victor Campenaerts. And we also have a lot of promising young people. We want to have a racing program adapted for young people so that they can develop at World Tou level.r”. And to conclude in a combative tone: “In 2024, we had a lot of bad luck with falls, illnesses…but we can't hide behind that, we have to improve, keep fighting and show resilience“.
Ambitious goals
Asked about the team's goals for 2025 Nierman was clear: “Our dream and major objective is to win the Tour de France. We've already done it twice. Last year we didn't win, so winning it back is priority number 1. Tadej Pogacar was the strongest and he deserved to win. It's up to us to find a way to beat him this season. It won't be easy, but it's our big goal. Jonas will be our leader and the team is also stronger.”
More Nierman and its runners will not only focus on the Tour de France. “We would also like to win the Vuelta. On the Giro, we will go with Wout Van Aert and Olav Kooj, but also Simon Yates to get the general and stages. For the years to come, the dream remains to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, we will not stop until we have succeeded.“
