Davide Piganzoli replaces Van Aert on Visma's Tour de France team: 'I didn't know how to tell my family'

Visma | Lease a Bike announced its roster for the upcoming Tour de France during a live show on Tuesday. One spot remained up in the air: the one originally held by Wout van Aert. Davide Piganzoli was introduced on Tuesday as the replacement for the Belgian chameleon, a development that surprised the Italian himself. He called in during the show.

Piganzoli has been regarded as a major talent for several years now: in 2023, for example, he finished third in the Tour de l'Avenir, behind Isaac del Toro and Giulio Pellizzari. For the past two years, he rode for the smaller Polti VisitMalta team, before making the switch to Visma | Lease a Bike this winter. There, Piganzoli immediately played a crucial role in Jonas Vingegaard’s Giro d’Italia victory, and he will now be helping Vingegaard in the Tour as well.

"Marc (Reef, ed.) called me a few days ago and... that was really special," Piganzoli explains. "I have to admit that my reaction was something like, 'What? Am I going to the Tour?' And yeah, that's really amazing."

The 23-year-old Italian was so impressed that he kept it a secret from those around him for a while. "I have to say that I called my girlfriend first, because she's the most important person to me. And I actually had to wait a few days before calling my family, because I wasn't quite sure how to break the news to them."

In the end, he picked up the phone after all. “I said something like, ‘What are you doing on July 1? We’re going to Barcelona together.’ That’s really fantastic,” said Piganzoli, who will now suddenly be riding two Grand Tours in a row. “I’m already very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the Giro and how hard we worked to get ready for it.”