The Grand Tour rivalry between Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG is set to enter its second round in 2025 at next month’s Tour de France after 11 of the last 15 Grand Tours in men’s cycling have been claimed by the two super teams.
Their rivalry isn’t bitter, however, but one that comes with respect and forces cycling’s top two teams to get better, according to the former’s Managing Director, Richard Plugge.
“Mauro Gianetti and I just spoke, and we have a lot of respect for each other,” Plugge told Cyclingnews, after Simon Yates snatched a the Giro d’Italia title from the Emirati squad’s hands on the penultimate day.
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“They push us to become better, and I think, I hope, we do it with his team and him, and that’s what makes sports really beautiful.
“You win something, then you lose something, and you think next time, ‘I have to beat him’, but it’s all out of respect, and that’s what makes this sport, and every sport, incredibly nice.”
During last week’s Giro d’Italia finale, it was Visma’s Simon Yates and UAE’s Isaac del Toro who finished in the top two positions, with the Brit coming out on top in dramatic fashion. In July, it will be their top superstars – Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar – who duke it out for the maillot jaune.
Having not seen Vingegaard race since he left Paris-Nice with a concussion in March, his only appearance before the Tour’s Grand Départ on July 5 will come at next week’s Critérium du Dauphiné.
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Pogačar will also be racing the key eight-stage form-marking race, but with the Tour not far away, Plugge is only excited at the prospect of his star Dane coming face to face with cycling’s top rider at the biggest race on the calendar.
“We did not raise the bar [for July by winning the Giro], we know Jonas made a step this year in the wintertime,” said Plugge.
“We have a very strong opponent, but I think in a three-week race, they are getting closer to each other than in the one-day races, because Pogačar is phenomenal in these. In a three-week race, it will be very exciting to see how far we get.”
Yates took the latest of Visma-Lease a Bike’s Grand Tour wins at the Giro, winning with a stunning attack on the Colle delle Finestre, and a strong assist from Wout van Aert on stage 20. He will be at the Tour, too, but as Vingegaard’s super climbing domestique.
The Brit’s overall win brought the Dutch team’s Grand Tour title tally up to eight since Plugge took over and transformed the then Rabobank squad into Visma as we know it today, with the culture and idea of winning together being crucial to their rapid rise.
Yates is also their fourth rider from the team to win one of cycling’s prestigious three-week races, while UAE have only been able to triumph through Pogačar, with the likes of Del Toro, João Almeida and another super prospect, Juan Ayuso, falling short in the past three seasons.
Plugge didn’t have an exact answer for his rival, but credited much of Visma’s continued success, even after the departure of Grand Tour mastermind Merijn Zeeman last summer, down to the team’s culture of togetherness.
“We now have four winners, Sepp [Kuss], Jonas [Vingegaard], Primož [Roglič] and Simon [Yates],” said Plugge.
“I think what we try to do is have a really good programme, a really good team. Our team culture, which Wout van Aert is a personification of, is that we put in 100% for everyone, and we help everyone to win.”
Yates, after 11 years at GreenEdge Cycling, bought into this, and it enabled him to find a possible unseen previous top level, and allowed him to complete the ultimate redemption victory story on the climb, which infamously saw him lose the Giro back in 2018.
“Simon is very good indeed, maybe better than he ever was before, but he also has a team now that works for him, sacrifices for him, puts him in positions in front of the race,” said the Visma team boss.
“For example, when crashes happened, we were in the right spot there. Of course, it’s a bit of luck on one hand, but on the other, it’s where you need to be at that time, and that’s where the team helps a lot.
“That’s how we do it: working together, winning together, and losing together.”