Wilco Kelderman crashes heavily in the final build-up to the Giro d'Italia

Wilco Kelderman lines up in Burgas on Friday as one of Jonas Vingegaard's key lieutenants at the Giro d'Italia — but the Dutchman's build-up to the race has been far from smooth. He told IDL Pro Cycling at Wednesday's team presentation in Burgas.

Kelderman had been pencilled in to ride alongside Vingegaard throughout the first part of 2026, all the way to the Giro. In the end, that plan did not fully materialise — through setbacks on both sides. Vingegaard missed the UAE Tour following a crash and illness, though the two did ride the unplanned Paris-Nice together, which Vingegaard won.

After that, their paths split: Vingegaard headed to Catalonia while Kelderman eventually only raced the Volta NXT Classic. "Normally I would have ridden Catalonia too, but I didn't in the end. I was a little under the weather — not quite right — so we decided to skip it and just focus on building towards the Giro."

That final straight road to Burgas was not smooth either. "I took a heavy crash on one of the last days of the altitude camp, so the final week wasn't ideal. But I just about recovered in time for the Giro."

What happened? "I just slipped out on what looked like a completely simple corner. Nothing dramatic, really. My coach was riding behind me and even he wasn't quite sure what went wrong. It's just rubbish when something like that happens in training," he sighs.

All's well that ends well: Kelderman is visibly sharp in Burgas and is on the start line. "A crash is never nice, mainly because it stays uncomfortable for a long time and you never feel quite right. But on the bike I barely notice it — and that's what matters."

"Things are going well now," the Dutchman confirms. The crash was also not behind the late announcement of Visma | Lease a Bike's Giro squad. "The timing of the announcement had nothing to do with it. That was more about making nice videos — ha!"

"We have a plan for each day. We have Tim Rex and Timo Kielich as our two men for the flat stages, and then Campenaerts, Bart Lemmen and I are in a similar bracket — riders who can stay further up the road on the climbs and also do work on the flat. Then Davide Piganzoli and Sepp Kuss need to stay with Jonas deep into the climbs and do the 'lead-out' for him."