{"id":801691,"date":"2026-07-15T11:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801691\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:13:12","slug":"breukink-criticizes-visma-after-the-first-week-of-the-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801691\/","title":{"rendered":"Breukink criticizes Visma after the first week of the Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the first week behind them, the Tour de France kicked off immediately<\/a> with a challenging stage. Winding through the Cantal Mountains, it finished at Le Lioran, where Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> defeated Tadej Pogacar two years ago. Poga\u010dar duly took his revenge in 2026<\/a>. Something ex-pro Erik Breukink had already predicted. He\u2019s not particularly pleased with how Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> is handling this Tour. He cites, among other things, the team time trial, Grischa Niermann<\/a>\u2019s departure, and the rumors surrounding Paul Seixas.Visma | Lease a Bike got off to a perfect start in the Tour de France. The team won the team time trial in Barcelona<\/a>, with Vingegaard immediately claiming the yellow jersey. UAE Team Emirates-XRG finished third, already trailing by twelve seconds. The victory was celebrated exuberantly, and the emotions were clearly visible. But Breukink wasn\u2019t really impressed.”Maybe it\u2019s because I lived through the Peter Post era. He would have said, \u2018Winning a stage is nice, but we\u2019ve only just gotten started and we\u2019re not going to go overboard here. Tomorrow is another day.\u2019 Perhaps this understated pragmatism was the other extreme when it came to celebrating a victory. But it did keep you grounded,\u201d he explains in his column for De Telegraaf<\/a>.Moreover, the lead they had built up vanished like snow in the sun, especially when Pogacar accelerated on the Col du Tourmalet<\/a> and put Vingegaard more than 2.30 minutes behind. This is indicative of the shift in fortunes between the two top teams, says Breukink. \u201cRight now, Pogacar and his team have things very well organised, while at Visma | Lease a Bike, things look a lot less promising than in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar-jonas-vingegaard-2\"\/Breukink on Niermann: ‘We should have matched Lidl-Trek’s offer’<\/p>\n

Still, the Dutch former pro doesn\u2019t want to jump to conclusions just yet. \u201cIt may seem like a hopeless mission, but make no mistake. The Tour de France is a brutal beast. The scorching heat of the past few days is going to claim many more victims. What\u2019s more, the danger of an unfortunate crash lurks around every corner. And, of course, the third grueling week is still ahead. Tadej Pogacar\u2019s fifth Tour victory is in the making, but at the same time, it\u2019s far from a sure thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s clear to everyone that things aren\u2019t looking great. The world champion has been virtually unbeatable for three years in a row, and in this Tour de France as well, it seems like an impossible task for Visma | Lease a Bike to dethrone him. On top of that, there were quite a few things going on behind the scenes with the Dutch team that may also have had an impact.<\/p>\n

Breukink mentions Grischa Niermann\u2019s departure. The nearly indispensable German chose to leave Lidl-Trek<\/a>\u2014something the Dutch team, according to the former cyclist, should never have allowed to happen. \u201cFor Vingegaard, he has always been an important confidant during his two Tour victories, in 2022 and 2023. It\u2019s very strange that they let him go. In my opinion, they should have matched Lidl-Trek\u2019s financial offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"sepp-kuss-paul-seixas\"\/Seixas to Visma? ‘It came across as very strange,’ says BreukinkBreukink also isn\u2019t happy that Visma | Lease a Bike has been open about its interest in Paul Seixas. \u201cAnnouncing during the Tour that Richard Plugge, the boss of Visma | Lease a Bike, is after the 19-year-old French prodigy Seixas<\/a> came across as very strange. How does this affect your team\u2014and especially your team leader in the Tour? Vingegaard won\u2019t say, but it doesn\u2019t exactly inspire a lot of confidence in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron has already weighed in on the discussion and hopes that Seixas will remain with Decathlon CMA CGM. The third-place finisher in the 1990 Tour de France agrees. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s best for cycling. If Seixas leaves Decathlon, it will cause major problems for that team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the first week behind them, the Tour de France kicked off immediately with a challenging stage. Winding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,182689,6495,85,346968,23372],"class_list":["post-801691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-grischa-niermann","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france-2026","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}