Visma | Lease a Bike just on the wrong side of the coin in tough mountain stage in Switzerland

Lemmen was part of the large 28-rider breakaway on day one and finished among the top three, putting him in a promising spot in the overall standings thanks to the time gap they gained. Fellow breakaway riders Romain Grégoire, Kévin Vauquelin, and Julian Alaphilippe were able to capitalize on that in the first mountain stage, while Lemmen just fell short on the Splügen Pass and couldn’t hold on.

After stage one, both Lemmen, who still had the Giro d’Italia in his legs, and sports director Maarten Wynants knew it would be a challenge to defend that GC position. “Bart is someone who knows himself very well and carries a certain level of maturity,” Wynants told us. “That comes from his life experience, of course. He knows his place in the peloton but also takes responsibility when needed.”

When asked for further explanation, Wynants praised the opportunities the 29-year-old former soldier knows how to create for himself. “You already saw that last year in the Tour Down Under, UAE Tour, and Tour of Norway, and now again. When a chance presents itself, and that doesn’t happen often on our team, Bart usually grabs it with both hands. With Bart, you can go to war,” Wynants concluded with a wink.

On the Splügen Pass, the third-placed rider in the general classification just missed making it over the top with the best climbers. Lemmen was on the wrong side of the split and ended up in a chasing group that eventually lost four minutes. As a result, he dropped to thirteenth place in the standings.

At Visma | Lease a Bike, the focus is now on winning stages, Wynants stated in the team’s race report. “The plan was to get in the early break. That wasn’t easy, but eventually a strong break formed with Tom Gloag. Unfortunately, they weren’t given much room by the peloton, even though Tom looked strong on the climbs. The other goal was to keep Bart high in the GC, but that didn’t work out,” the sports director said after the tough Alpine stage.

Thursday brings the queen stage. “Hopefully we can get in the breakaway again and go for the stage win from there. The GC is probably out of reach, but we’ll do everything we can to take a stage win in this race.”