A bottle, a damn bottle, got in his way and there was nothing Dylan Van Baarle, the Visma cyclist, could do. He had to abandon the Vuelta in the second stage. Bike on one side, handlebars on the other and the cyclist in the ditch, a real crash. “He is in quite a lot of pain and he still can’t fly home. He had a check-up at the hospital yesterday, but the diagnosis was not clear. We don’t know what he has and what the process will be for him to get back on the bike,” explains Addy Engels, Visma’s sports director from Lousã (Portugal), just before the start of the third stage. “He is very sad because he fell in the Dauphiné and couldn’t be there for the Tour, and now, after a long period of preparation, he falls in the first stage on the road,” adds Engels, who describes his withdrawal as capital, since he is one of those cyclists who controls the peloton and the breakaways, which could launch Van Aert. “But we still have strong riders and we have to trust in our work,” he says. Said and done, Van Aert triumphed. But Visma’s struggle with injuries and falls this season has been marked by misfortune.
After completing a great season last year, with the triple crown in the Grand Tour and a full podium in the Vuelta, Visma lost Roglic along the way – he signed for Bora, eager to be a pillar and not a decoration –, with Vingegaard as leader and Kuss and Van Aert as the top swords. But (almost) everything has gone wrong for one of the teams with the biggest budget (behind Pogacar’s UAE, also from Ineos) in the peloton. “It’s the worst year in terms of injuries and falls. Absolutely,” Engels laments; “when that happens to you a lot, I don’t know if I can call it bad luck. We’ll evaluate it at the end of the year, but I think yes, it’s bad luck.” Although the truth is that Visma doesn’t have many retirements during the season (39), as it has 15 World Tour teams ahead of it, far behind Cofidis (80) and DSM (76), leaders in the statistics.
It happened, for example, that Van Aert crashed in A Traves de Flanders, which prevented him from going to the Giro after months of preparation and enthusiasm. Kuss, who also crashed, got sick with Covid and was left without the Tour. And Vingegaard kissed the asphalt in the Itzulia, which made him arrive at the Tour somewhat limping, second after all because he is a competitive animal, the only one capable of overshadowing Pogacar, champion of the two Grand Tours of the year. “It is clear that we have not won as much as last year, but we have had good results, as we have won Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, and won stages in the Tour and the Giro, as well as recently winning the Tour of Poland,” recalls Engels, aware that they are second in the UCI ranking with 14,737 points, although far behind the UAE (27,490).
When it comes to slaps, a good face is needed. Or at least a good attitude. “We have had many riders fall and that, sometimes, is not up to us. But we must continue and keep our spirits high, focused on what we have to do and believing in ourselves. And that will be seen in the Vuelta.” Van Aert, for now, responds with the red jersey.
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