Two years ago, Visma-Lease a Bike were the dominant team at the Cobbled Classics, taking wins at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen. They may have lacked the absolute peak to compete with Tour of Flanders winner Tadej Pogačar, and a puncture robbed Wout van Aert the chance to battle Mathieu van der Poel for Paris-Roubaix glory, however, as a unit over the bergs and cobbled roads, Visma looked the most complete.
Fast forward to this year’s E3 – a race Van Aert won back-to-back in 2022 and 2023, and the start of a big run of targets – and their best result was ninth, the worst for the well-oiled Dutch machine for four years since Van Aert took 11th in 2021.
Perhaps more alarming than the result itself was the way the team raced, with neither Van Aert nor co-leader Matteo Jorgenson making it into the race-defining move sparked by Mads Pedersen.
The American fought hard in group two, after wasting energy to bridge across to a large breakaway which formed due to an early crash, but ultimately didn’t have the legs when it mattered. Van Aert, more concerningly, “missed the beat on Taaienberg” in his own words, unseen from the broadcast frame while his long-term rival Van der Poel started his run to victory.
It was uncharacteristic of the killer bees, who looked unorganised in their approach to the key cobbled climb, especially for Van Aert, who with wins at E3, Wevelgem and Omloop in his career, alongside losing the Ronde in 2020 by a matter of centimetres, is one of the top operators in the world on the cobbles.
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Granted, he has just come back from a long altitude camp in Tenerife alongside Tiesj Benoot, however, Visma-Lease a Bike were certainly expecting more of him and the whole squad just hours before they were exposed.
“The team is feeling good. Everybody is doing well, the guys that are here, and we are happy that we have a strong team to race with. We are very ambitious,” Visma’s Head of Racing Grischa Niermann told Cycling News before the start of E3.
After Van Aert faced some criticism for opting to skip the Italian Classics Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, two races he has won previously, Niermann was also confident in the team’s decision of having such a big altitude block heading into the Flemish race.
“That’s the approach we chose, and we are a very performance-oriented team. This is absolutely an approach our performance coaches believe in, and that’s why we are doing this,” continued Niermann.
“I’m pretty sure that Wout will be very strong. Is this the perfect preparation when you compare it to racing instead? Time will tell. But we believe that for him, this is the best individual approach.”
Some riders do take time to feel the peak of their altitude training once they come down from the high ground, however, this hasn’t usually been an issue for Van Aert in previous years. At the finish, Visma simply had to accept defeat.
“We weren’t good enough,” Niermann told Sporza. “It can be that simple sometimes, unfortunately. The gap is big and that’s not pretty, but we’ll keep fighting.
“We haven’t seen the best Wout, that’s for sure. We have to make do with this now because it’s clear that we couldn’t compete against this Mathieu.”
‘It’s about staying calm and confident’
So just what is going wrong at Visma-Lease a Bike? Is it simply a matter of continued bad luck? Is it the departure of Merijn Zeeman, their former mastermind sports director? Or vital domestique Nathan Van Hooydonck’s career coming to a premature end due to heart issues in late 2023?
Whichever of those factors is to blame, or perhaps all of them mixed with the likes of Van der Poel and Pogačar only getting better, Visma seem far away from the dominant force they were in 2023 heading towards the Cobbled Monuments in Flanders and Roubaix.
After all, it was the very two protagonists mentioned above that Van Aert defeated at the 2023 E3, shouting the words “Ik moet juist niks” – “I don’t need to do anything” – into the TV camera in response to critics in Belgium who’d claimed a win in Harelbeke was necessary before De Ronde and Roubaix.
But that bravado doesn’t seem to be there anymore, with the team saying positioning was not the problem for Van Aert this time at E3, as it was in the 2025 Omloop. He simply wasn’t strong enough, and if he doesn’t vastly improve before April 6, Van Aert won’t be able to live with Van der Poel and Pogačar once the action kicks off in the bergs.
Even still, Van der Poel, Pogačar, Pedersen, Filippo Ganna, and all the big favourites for Flanders won’t be writing off the men in yellow and black.
The team have said that keeping calm will be key to this year’s campaign, ensuring they don’t get carried away with “wanting it too much”, especially after the disappointment of Van Aert’s Classics cruelly ending with a brutal crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen last March.
“He’s really hungry. On the other hand, it’s also about staying calm and confident and there are very important races coming up, but we also try to keep it simple and remember it’s just racing,” said Niermann.
“When we want it too much, then it’s also not going in the right direction. So I think all the boys are really, really motivated.”
Will Matteo Jorgenson emerge as Visma’s star rider?
If Van Aert isn’t up to the challenge, however, Visma do have another arrow in the quiver in the form of Matteo Jorgenson, their top finisher at Friday’s E3 and the last rider to be dropped by Van der Poel in last year’s Ronde.
“He’s feeling good, he knows the races now, and also the team from last year,” Niermann told Cycling News, with great confidence that the American is even stronger than his Dwars door Vlaanderen-winning form from last season.
“I also hope that he made another step. He was already really good last year in these races as well. Now he comes to Belgium again off the back of winning Paris-Nice so for sure, he’s ready to rumble.
“I think we know that he again improved a bit, but how much better will it be compared to last year, that depends on the opponents. Of course, we hope that he can play an even better role, especially when we also look to Tour of Flanders, which should suit him really well.”
Jorgenson has also had his schedule changed with a debut at Gent-Wevelgem now imminent. It’s unclear as to why Visma made the late swap, whether that be due to a disappointing E3 and needing more race rhythm, or weather conditions possibly favouring attackers over sprinters. Either way, Visma have drafted in one of their big leaders despite initially wanting to sprint.
“We are going for a sprint with Olav,” said Niermann last week, with full focus on guiding “Olav to the finish line as best we can”.
The Dutch sprinter more than deserves the team’s belief after scoring a second-place finish at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and taking eighth at Milan-San Remo already this year, however, the addition of Jorgenson suggests a different story.
Niermann was already confident that Jorgenson would be on a somewhat equal level of leadership alongside Van Aert for Flanders, however, after not riding the race he wanted at E3, a good result in Wevelgem could reignite the confidence.
“We are racing with a lot of options always and Matteo is really strong,” he said. “The ideal scenario for us in Flanders is, of course, if these two [Jorgenson and Van Aert] get to the final together.”
Big loss in Laporte as Van Baarle looks to rediscover top shape
Another key factor missing for Visma-Lease a Bike at this year’s Flemish Classics is the presence of former Dwars door Vlaanderen and Gent-Wevegem winner Christophe Laporte, who is out with cytomegalovirus.
In 2022 he rode hand in hand with Van Aert to the finish in E3 before repeating the feat in Wevelgem a year later. It’s not to be underestimated just how vital the Frenchman was to Visma’s success in recent years.
“He is a big loss for these races because he plays a very good role,” said Niermann.
“I started the race meeting for E3 with a photo of Christophe and Wout going over the finish line here in E3 together. It’s already three years ago now, and so we will miss him, for sure.”
Visma are hopeful, however, of Dylan van Baarle re-finding his best legs as a former Roubaix, Dwars and Omloop winner, who has had the worst luck in recent seasons. After showing his masterful anticipation skills on debut for Visma at the latter of those three races, it’s been a story of crashes for the Dutchman.
Fractures to his hand, scapula, hip and collarbone (twice) in the past three years have seen him either not present or at top form for the cobbled races which he loves most, not to mention untimely illness too. But Niermann has seen positive signs for the former Monument champion.
“I think he was in good shape the last two years for the Classics, but he was ill both years,” said Visma’s Head of Racing.
“Now he’s feeling fit and feeling well. We will see and hope that he can show more than he showed the last few years, certainly.”
The roster for Visma is still filled with top riders, but if they are to challenge the Van der Poel and likely Pogačar supremacy at Flanders and Roubaix, it’s going to take a real uptick in form and perhaps some clever tactics to get ahead of their rivals.
They’ve certainly got the manpower to do it, and perhaps the most dangerous thing that rivals could do is underestimate Visma, however, it may be Jorgenson, not Van Aert, who emerges as their leader.
