{"id":16303,"date":"2025-07-22T20:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/16303\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:31:07","slug":"whos-bjarne-riis-plugge-hits-back-at-criticism-of-visma-and-vingegaard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/16303\/","title":{"rendered":"“Who’s Bjarne Riis?\u201d \u2013 Plugge hits back at criticism of Visma and Vingegaard"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Tour de France<\/a> enters its decisive final week, Team Visma
\n| Lease a Bike finds itself in an unwanted position, chasing. Jonas Vingegaard<\/a>
\nis still second overall, but Tadej Pogacar has a firm grip on yellow, having
\ntaken four stage wins and built a commanding lead. The scenario has led to
\npublic criticism of Visma\u2019s approach, most notably from former Tour winner
\nBjarne Riis<\/a>, who even suggested Vingegaard consider leaving the team. Team boss
\nRichard Plugge<\/a> isn\u2019t too impressed by those comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho’s Bjarne Riis? He’s somewhere in Denmark watching from
\na distance,\u201d Plugge told AD, brushing off the comments. \u201cI’m used to everyone
\nbeing involved with us. Some people think what we do is fantastic, others think
\nit’s absolutely awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he\u2019s not blind to the reality. \u201cIt can always be
\nbetter,\u201d he admitted. \u201cWe’re mainly focused on improving with our experts. We
\ncould write the most critical columns about ourselves. About what? I’m not
\ngoing to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Visma isn\u2019t without results this Tour, Simon Yates delivered
\na stage win and Vingegaard remains Pogacar\u2019s closest rival. \u201cWe’ve been on the
\npodium in every Tour since 2019. For now, we’re second in the Tour and
\nPogacar’s biggest challenger. And we also won a stage with Simon Yates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plugge knows the gap is larger than planned, but says
\nthere\u2019s no panic. \u201cWe know Pogacar is the best rider in the world. Jonas has
\nlost twice as much time as we anticipated. That’s why we’re two minutes further
\nbehind than expected. But there’s still a lot to come, and Jonas is feeling
\ngood.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Tour de France enters its decisive final week, Team Visma | Lease a Bike finds itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-16303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}