Visma | Lease a Bike lick their wounds in Belgium and France: string of abandonments, others battle on

Visma | Lease a Bike still have plenty to race for on several fronts during this packed week of cycling. The yellow-and-black squad were once again among the best on Friday at the Tour of Britain, Lidl Deutschland Tour and Renewi Tour. Saturday and Sunday will be about putting all the pieces together so that they have something tangible to show for their efforts by Sunday evening. However, the team has also had to deal with a considerable number of crashes.

In Great Britain, Kim Le Court took the lead in Stage 3, while SD Worx-Protime were also in the spotlight with a strong Lorena Wiebes and the withdrawal of Lotte Kopecky. Visma | Lease a Bike, meanwhile, were once again able to celebrate an excellent ride from Femke de Vries. The 32-year-old climber finished fourth on the difficult final climb and moved up to fifth in the general classification as a result.gh final climb, moving her up to fifth place in the general classification.

De Vries — who had already produced a strong Tour de France Femmes earlier this summer — continues to deliver in 2026. “The pace was extremely high right from the bottom, and I also had to avoid a crash. Kim was simply too strong today on a climb like this, where there was nowhere to hide. I enjoyed the stage and I can be happy with this result,” De Vries said through the team's official channels.

In the men's races, all eyes on Friday were on the Deutschland Tour and Renewi Tour. Both races reached stage 3 and, although the German race ended in a bunch sprint, Isaac Del Toro of UAE Team Emirates-XRG still managed to collect three bonus seconds along the way. That moved him to within six seconds of Louis Barré, who had taken the race lead with his stage victory the previous day.

“The most important thing today was to reach the finish safely, and we managed to do that,” said team director Gaëtan Pons after a brutal day in pouring rain. Barré simply had to accept Del Toro taking three seconds back. “We would have preferred to see the breakaway take the bonus seconds, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Thankfully, it doesn't make too much difference because Louis is still the race leader.”

With the idea that attack is the best form of defence, Visma | Lease a Bike will not simply spend Saturday's queen stage watching Del Toro, Pons suggested. “Louis is in really good form and, with Bart [Lemmen], we have another card to play in the general classification. Tomorrow, just like in the first stage, we want to race aggressively again and compete for the victory.”

Finally, there was the Renewi Tour, where the riders tackled the Muur van Geraardsbergen in what was billed as the queen stage. Visma | Lease a Bike saw Filippo Fiorelli finish eighth, moving the Italian up to 11th overall. With two more explosive stages still to come, Fiorelli may even be able to start dreaming of something more.

“We definitely didn't have the best day considering the number of crashes we were involved in,” Head of Racing Marc Reef said afterwards. “After several setbacks, the guys really kept fighting. On the final lap, we tried to put Filippo in the best possible position and he managed to sprint to eighth place. That's definitely a good result.”

Alongside Fiorelli's result, however, the team had plenty of setbacks to digest. Owain Doull and Loe van Belle were forced to abandon after being involved in a crash, while Timo Kielich was not feeling well and also stepped off. Pietro Mattio crashed too, but fought his way back and even claimed the white jersey. Menno Huising spent much of the day in the thick of the action, but he too hit the deck with 40 kilometres remaining.

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Further south, in France, things were not going much better. The team had already been hit by crashes on the opening day of the Tour de l'Avenir, with Polish rider Patryk Goszczurny forced to abandon. “This isn't how I wanted to start the Tour de l'Avenir. I had to abandon the race because of a knee injury after the crash. Now I'm going to focus on my recovery and preparing for the World Championships.” Visma's difficult opening stage was also reflected in the results, with Goszczurny unable to finish.

Matisse Van Kerckhove, one of the team's leaders for the race, has gone down twice in the opening two stages. “Not the start I was hoping for, with two heavy crashes in the first two days. I'm not giving up,” insisted the Belgian, who has enjoyed an impressive season so far. Van Kerckhove was again among the Visma riders affected by the major crash on stage 2, which temporarily forced organisers to neutralise the race.