Visma | Lease a Bike team director Jos van Emden accuses UCI of dirty games: "I’ve completely lost faith in them"

Visma | Lease a Bike had already explained on Sunday what they believe went wrong ahead of the team time trial. “Although the riders were present well in time for the mandatory bike check before the team time trial, delays occurred in the process because another team arrived late. Additionally, the checks were initially carried out by only one person, which caused even more delay.”

“A second inspector was only brought in later, but by then, Team Visma | Lease a Bike Women could no longer benefit. As a result, some riders got their bikes back so late that they couldn’t make it to the start on time,” the team stated. Jacco Verharen added: “I went straight to the UCI jury after the stage. They admitted that things did not go well. We work at the highest level of sport, and this is one of the grand tours on the calendar. We deeply regret what happened.”

Team director Van Emden took it a step further on Instagram. “To give a idea how nasty @uci_cycling works i want to share some information. To be clear, many teams were influenced by bad operations by the uci so no teams to blame. Now the uci is playing nasty games to the teams to tell other teams, in this case @movistar_team, we asked to disqualify them. My trust in the uci was little but from now on its gone. Fair play... my *ss.”

Vos let her legs do the talking, and was understandably pleased. “The team has been working incredibly hard all season. After what happened on Sunday, we wanted to use that as motivation. This is sporting revenge. We were all on board with the plan, and it’s amazing to finish it off like this,” said Vos, who announced this spring that she will stay with Visma | Lease a Bike for the rest of her career.  

It was a tricky stage, partly due to the conditions in Spain. “The most important thing was to ride up front and stay out of trouble, although of course you hope everyone gets to the finish safely. I still had Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Imogen Wolff with me, and that’s great. I just had to follow them. That way, I entered the final corner in first position. It was slippery in the finale, but that’s exactly when you want to be at the front.” And it worked, Vos won with several bike lengths to spare.

The fact that Vos entered that final corner, less than 150 meters from the finish, in first position sparked some cynical reactions on social media. “What was the rule again about the minimum distance between the final corner and the finish line? Can someone remind the jury in Spain, because they seem to have forgotten,” responded Visma | Lease a Bike CEO Richard Plugge on X.