VALLOIRE, France – ’s seven grand tour wins have been based around the strength of their team – and having supporting their leaders in the thick of the action.
Think of the mob-handed Col du Granon masterplan in the 2022 , Primoz Roglic and taking Pogacar over his head before the finale, or their 2023 Vuelta a España evisceration.
Not for nothing is the squad’s motto the Dutch phrase samen winnen – winning together, the concept that nobody is above the unit, that the hive’s hard work and cohesion will make the difference.
However, on stage 4 of the Tour de France, the Dutch “Killer Bees” were more like harmless flies. Rivals Team UAE Emirates swarmed at the front of the race and , eking out a 45-second lead.
Wilco Kelderman, suffering from a crash on the race’s opening day, and Jan Tratnik drifted back on the Lautaret, while American Matteo Jorgenson was last man standing for his leader Vingegaard.
He supported the Dane until dropping back 4 kilometers from the summit of the mighty Col du Galibier. At that point, Pogacar still had Juan Ayuso and João Almeida alongside him, racing with intent and .
Asked how he judged the team performance post-race by media, Visma-Lease a Bike coach Grischa Niermann said: “Today, we saw that we miss an in-form Sepp Kuss in this race.
“But we knew that when we had to take the decision he’s not coming, because we don’t have a climber like Sepp next to Jonas on the team,” Niermann said.
An absentee after failing to recover from a COVID-19 infection, mainstay Kuss has been a team member on all of the team’s seven grand tour wins, pace-setting and supporting Vingegaard and Roglič over the years.
“I think Matteo, maybe he expected a bit more [from] himself, but in the end, he finished with the group going for ninth place,” Niermann said. “He was up there and there were other guys also getting dropped.”
Jorgenson’s Bad Day
A new signing to the team in 2024, 25-year-old Jorgenson has stepped up to be Vingegaard’s right-hand man at the Tour.
“It was a learning experience, I guess,” Jorgenson told Eurosport and assembled media afterwards. “It was not the best day for us.”
“I don’t think the numbers were anything ridiculous. When I was looking at my power meter, I wasn’t like, ‘Wow, I can’t hold this pace,’ I was more within my limits. I just wasn’t on that great of a day.
“Generally, Jonas could probably have used a higher pace to reduce the explosivity of Pogacar. That’s kind of my bad for not being there to be able to do it,” he added.
He explained that the Visma-Lease a Bike team wanted to set a harder tempo on the Galibier, but didn’t have the numbers to do it after the Col du Lautaret precursor.
Sporting a bandage on his right elbow , Jorgenson rued that he didn’t have his best legs: “It’s just two days after the crash, I had a bit of a bad day. But in general, we did our best as a team.”
“I lost two and a half minutes or something on Pogacar, so it’s not great. And I also wasn’t there when Jonas needed me. Hopefully it gets better.”
Minutes before Jorgenson spoke, his team leader Vingegaard, 50 seconds behind his Slovenian adversary on GC, .
Jorgenson has won Paris-Nice and finished second at the Critérium du Dauphiné in a breakout year, but it seems that the pre-race possibility of him challenging for GC as Plan B will surely go to the back burner.
After stage 4, the Idahoan is positioned 11th overall, 3:21 behind race leader Pogačar after finishing in a seven-strong group which included Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) and the Ineos Grenadiers pair of Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal.