Crash overshadows Visma | Lease a Bike as Van Dongen rues Kielich injury

Speaking after the race, Van Dongen said the team could be satisfied with how its leaders performed across the weekend. He pointed to Per Strand Hagenes on Friday and to Laporte and Van Aert on Sunday as signs that Visma | Lease a Bike’s main cards are in good shape.

But he also stressed that Kielich’s crash cast a shadow over the day, saying he had seen many crashes before, yet this one stood out because the Belgian was clearly in serious pain. Kielich has since been reported as having suffered a broken collarbone, a blow the team expects to feel over the coming weeks.

Van Dongen also reflected on the team’s race situation after the Plug Streets, where Visma | Lease a Bike were left with only two riders in the front group. He explained that both Kielich and Laporte had been earmarked for that phase of the race, and that losing Kielich at that moment reduced the team’s tactical options. Even so, he still felt Edoardo Affini had done his job well, while Van Aert and Laporte gave the squad something to build on in the final.

here was also an update on Matthew Brennan. Van Dongen said the team knows exactly what is going on with the young Brit and described his recovery as a matter of patience. Brennan fell ill in Italy, missed Milan-Sanremo, and was still feeling the after-effects in Wevelgem after spending several days on antibiotics.

So it came down to Van Aert and Laporte in the final, with the former pushing the pace on the Kemmelberg and eventually breaking away with Mathieu van der Poel. ‘Did I hope that Mathieu would ride more with us because he did that two years ago with Mads Pedersen? Well, no. They just played it very well at Alpecin-Premier Tech.’

‘They still had Jasper Philipsen there and we had Christophe Laporte, but no Matthew Brennan. If Matthew had been there, that would have been the perfect situation for us too. But Matthew wasn’t quite ready yet after his illness, so let this be an investment for the upcoming races.’

Van Dongen has said it before: “It doesn’t count” for him. “You can’t compare races, even though everyone is doing just that. On Friday I read that Van der Poel had shown weakness... You can’t compare apples to oranges, and that goes for the E3, Wevelgem, and on Wednesday, Dwars door Vlaanderen as well. And then also for Flanders and Roubaix,” he concludes.