Merijn Zeeman admitted in a conversation with the podcast In het Wiel that, for Visma-Lease a Bike, it is so far more difficult to win a Classic race than a Grand Tour.
“Maybe the team’s influence is a little less than in a Grand Tour. I see a difference there, but in our case it is simply because Mathieu Van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar are extremely good at this type of event”, said Zeeman.
If Wout Van Aert hadn’t encountered them and had to compete with competition from a few years earlier, he could have already won the Tour of Flanders, or Paris-Roubaix, several times, according to Zeeman.
“They are extremely good, truly out of this world. It’s a huge job, beating them. When you see how Van der Poel attacks at Poggio, or how Pogacar runs the last forty kilometers of the Tour of Flanders, then you need to have an extremely good formation, to keep up with them.”
New training program
The team is really looking for a victory, against the two leaders of victories in Classics. “We have to see if we can do this, in a smarter way, than their teams. When it comes to hand-to-hand combat, it becomes very difficult to win. I’ve been working on it, all day again.”
WoutVan Aert’s new program, without the Cyclocross World Cups, Milan-San Remo and Tour de France, among others, should increase this possibility.
“The choice not to send Wout to the Tour is really about optimizing him. How are we going to get the most out of it? Offering a different program. He will do something he has never done before. We could all see that he had to do something different, to make that leap.”
Same program many years ago, has been completely changed
“He has had the same program for many years, including the Cyclocross World Cups. There was tension everywhere. Everything had to be done as quickly as possible and in a short time. He won a stage at Paris-Nice, but it was also important for Roglic.”
“Then he went to Milan-San Remo, so to cut it and see if it could be done differently. If it could be better. It was a great discussion and we really did it together.”