Bart Lemmen skips Dutch road race championships, set to replace Affini at Tour de France

Bart Lemmen will not take part in Sunday's Dutch national road race championships in Nijmegen, Visma | Lease a Bike have confirmed to IDL Pro Cycling. The reason points firmly towards the Tour de France. The 30-year-old Dutchman was missing on Friday from the team's official list of national-championship riders, and everything now suggests he is being readied to step into the Tour squad.

Lemmen's absence comes a day after Edoardo Affini's crash at the Italian national time-trial championships. The Italian escaped without fractures, but suffered a deep cut to the groin that required both internal and external stitches. With his Tour participation now looking increasingly unlikely, Visma are set to need a replacement — and the clearest candidate by far is Lemmen.

Lemmen made no secret at the Tour de Suisse of the fact that he had initially intended to ride the national championships. In Switzerland he finished third on two stages and took a fine tenth place overall. That followed an excellent Giro d'Italia, in which, on the closing mountain stages, he proved to be Jonas Vingegaard's strongest climbing domestique of all.

Visma have not issued a formal confirmation, but everything the team has done since Affini's crash points to Lemmen lining up in Barcelona. As first reserve, he was always next in the queue — and the moment Affini went down, the team pulled him from the national-championship startlist to give him the best possible preparation for a 4 July start. A squad does not reshape a rider's race programme like that unless it expects to call on him.

Lemmen was therefore missing on Friday from the list of riders Visma | Lease a Bike shared ahead of this weekend's national championships. In the elite men's race, Loe van Belle, Tijmen Graat, Menno Huising and Wilco Kelderman are named.

There was certainly no question of injury or illness for Lemmen — quite the opposite. The Dutchman shared a training ride on Strava on Friday: "Business," he wrote alongside an upload of 119.27 kilometres, a ride between Amersfoort and Arnhem. To that we should add another 24.87 kilometres, as later emerged. Hardly the workload of a man winding down for a quiet weekend.

If — as now looks likely — Lemmen does step in for Affini at the Tour de France, it will be a repeat of his 2024 scenario. Back then he was the last-minute replacement for Sepp Kuss, who could not take part in the race because of a Covid infection.

Selecting Lemmen would be the logical call given his form, even if the former soldier has a hefty block of racing behind him. He already started in the Tour of Oman and the Muscat Classic in February, and on the road to the Giro d'Italia he also rode the Tour of Catalonia and the NXT Classic. In June, the Tour de Suisse was then added to the list.