Van der Poel loses another domestique, this time to Visma | Lease a Bike: "Great opportunity for myself"

The 26-year-old Belgian won this year's utterly chaotic Antwerp Port Epic, his third professional victory of his career. He previously won the Volta NXT Classic (2024) and a stage in the Tour de Wallonie (2023). After six years with Alpecin-Deceuninck, where he was part of the development team for three years while combining it with cyclocross, the rider from Sint-Truiden is opting for a new adventure.

“He will take on a similar role with us,” Grischa Niermann said in a press release about the role of positioning the team leaders. “Timo is a valuable addition to our spring classics squad to support our leaders. Every year, we deal with changes in the team; that’s normal. With Timo’s arrival, we’re anticipating the departure of certain riders from our classics squad.”

But that's not all. “In addition, he will have opportunities in other races to go for his own results. We also believe he can become an even better rider within our team,” said Niermann.

Kielich speaks of a great step. “I see this as a great opportunity for myself. This is only my second year in the WorldTour, but when you include my offroad years, I’ve already been part of the same team for eight years. A change of environment will be good for me, and I’m curious to see what it will be like in a new team. Besides the classics, I’m also looking forward to riding a Grand Tour with a team aiming for the general classification.”

The Belgian is the fourth addition to Visma | Lease a Bike, following the team's previous announcement that Tim Rex and Pietro Mattio will be joining from the development team, and Filippo Fiorelli was presented as an external signing.

For Alpecin-Deceuninck, Kielich is just the latest rider to leave the team. The Roodhooft brothers' team has already seen Quinten Hermans, Xandro Meurisse (both Q36.5), Fabio Van den Bossche, Edward Planckaert (both Soudal Quick-Step), and Gianni Vermeersch (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) leave. As a result, the classic core around Van der Poel will look a lot different next year.