{"id":474693,"date":"2026-02-14T15:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/474693\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:25:15","slug":"it-smells-like-a-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/474693\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt smells like a conflict\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has already happened for Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> in the opening months of 2026 \u2014 and not even in racing. The Dutch team hope to take the fight to Tadej Poga\u010dar again at the Tour de France and shine in the Classics, but are the early signs really that encouraging? Johan Bruyneel<\/a> doesn\u2019t think so.First, Wout van Aert crashed during his cyclocross winter. In the Mol cyclo-cross race he fractured his ankle, leaving his preparation for the road season far from ideal. Meanwhile, Simon Yates unexpectedly decided to retire from cycling. And then there was Tim Heemskerk, the coach of, among others, Jonas Vingegaard<\/a>, who left <\/a>the team. Three sizeable setbacks for Visma | Lease a Bike.Bruyneel discussed the team\u2019s turbulent start to the year on the THEMOVE<\/a> podcast. \u201cThe two things that stand out are, first of all, Simon Yates stopping so suddenly,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat was strange, but he\u2019ll have his reasons. And now one of the key coaches is leaving. That press release sounds very strange.\u201dHeemskerk explained <\/a>his departure in the statement: \u201cOver the past period, I have noticed that I was struggling to continue applying my creativity and passion, which are important to me in my work as a coach,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the moment for me to be honest with myself and with the team.\u201d For Vingegaard, it means losing an important link in the chain behind his success.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"heemskerk-vingegaard\"\/<\/p>\n

Vingegaard had to say goodbye to his coach, Tim Heemskerk.<\/p>\n

Conflict between Heemskerk and Visma? \u201cIt has to be\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruyneel doesn\u2019t believe it happened without a deeper reason. According to the former US Postal team boss, there is likely more going on behind the scenes. \u201cIt smells like there\u2019s been a conflict \u2014 between the coach and Richard Plugge, or the Head of Performance (Mathieu Heijboer),\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly where it comes from, but it has to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, he doesn\u2019t see it as a disaster scenario. \u201cThe coach is there for Jonas \u2014 someone with years of experience \u2014 to support him,\u201d Bruyneel argued. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to teach them brand-new secrets; they already know what they need to do. Not much will change, except the way a new coach might interpret performance differently. And whatever this coach did, he also shared it with the other coaches. So I don\u2019t see it as a huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bruyneel, it remains guesswork what triggered the departure \u2014 and the possible friction behind it. \u201cYou trust a coach: someone who listens and picks up on certain signals,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s constant communication, and based on that, plans get adjusted. Were his plans not being executed? Was he not allowed to? Maybe that\u2019s where the conflict was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot has already happened for Visma | Lease a Bike in the opening months of 2026 \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,15645,5900,82,10761],"class_list":{"0":"post-474693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-johan-bruyneel","12":"tag-jonas-vingegaard","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-visma-lease-a-bike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}