Recently, the Jumbo-Visma team announced the signing of Bart Lemmen, but this does not indicate that the team has completed its search for new riders. Merijn Zeeman provided this information in a conversation with the Dutch network NOS: “Our team is not yet fully defined; we are committed to continuing to work on it,” said the team’s sports manager.
New names are expected to be announced in the coming weeks
“I am still working with a few names. We hope to announce these in the next few weeks,” Zeeman said. In addition to the mentioned Lemmen, Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Ben Tulett (INEOS Grenadiers), Loe van Belle, Per Strand Hagenes, and Johannes Staune-Mittet (all from the Jumbo-Visma Development team) will also compete for Jumbo-Visma from next year, which will be called Visma-Lease a Bike in 2024.
“We have to come up with a trick to beat Pogacar and Mathieu Van der Poel.”
Last season, Jumbo-Visma showed remarkably dominant performances but still couldn’t achieve all their goals. The team failed to secure victories in cobblestone classics like the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. “Pogacar and Mathieu (Van der Poel), in particular, didn’t make things easy for us, to say the least. They proved to be much superior to us in the Tour of Flanders,” commented Zeeman.
“We have to come up with a trick to beat these guys,” refers to Pogacar and Van der Poel. “That’s a nice challenge; that’s what sports is about. It’s up to us to come up with a good plan in the coming weeks.”
Victories for Wout Van Aert will be a priority
Wout van Aert is the primary leader for the spring classics at Jumbo-Visma, but so far, he hasn’t managed to win the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix.
“So, Roubaix is definitely the race that suits him best. But the Tour of Flanders is something very special for him, so we will do everything we can for it again next year. Because it’s the toughest one for us to win,” Zeeman concludes.