Contract extensions at Visma-Lease a Bike as Jonas Vingegaard targets Tour de France treble

Visma-Lease a Bike announced a trio of contract extensions at their team launch in the Netherlands on Thursday with Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss and Fem van Empel all extending their current deals with the team.

The event also doubled up as a new kit launch for the Dutch team and a chance for Vingegaard to announce that he would aim at a third consecutive Tour de France title in 2024 with Vuelta a España champion Sepp Kuss joining him in the line-up.

There will be no Tour for all-rounder Wout van Aert with the Belgian designated to hunt stages at the Giro d’Italia in May after focusing on the Spring Classics alongside Christophe Laporte and Dylan van Baarle. Van Aert will skip Milan-San Remo and Strade Bianche as he restructures his spring campaign but will target Amstel Gold before heading to the Giro.

Vingegaard is now contracted to the team until the end of 2028 after signing a one-year extension, while Kuss will ride for the team until at least the end of 2027. Fem van Empel has also signed with the women’s team until the end of 2027. 

"This is excellent news for us. We like to enter into long-term partnerships, and we are happy that Fem, Sepp and Jonas feel the same way. We will continue to make sports history in the years to come,” said sports director Merijn Zeeman.

Joining Wout van Aert at the Giro d’Italia in May will be Grand Tour debutant Olav Kooij and Cian Uijtdebroeks - who joined the team in December after terminating his contract with Bora-Hansgrohe in rather acrimonious circumstances.Van Aert will head to Italy chasing wins rather than targeting the GC, with Uijtdebroeks handed that responsibility.

“It’s a super exciting race for me to explore. I hope to win a stage, or more if that’s possible. But you always have to start with the first one. It’s a tough course but there’s a lot of opportunities. So it will be a different approach for me, to go to the Giro and try to pick my days,” said Van Aert.

Vingegaard can still count on a strong support crew as he hunts his third straight title in 2024. The Danish rider will be joined at the Tour by Kuss, Laporte, Tiesj Benoot, van Baarle, Jan Tratnik and American rider Matteo Jorgenson, who joined from Movistar over the winter.

“The Tour de France will once again be my main objective for 2024. I won it two times and I’ll try and win it a third time in a row,” Vingegaard said during the team presentation.

The Dane acknowledged that missing Wout van Aert would come at a price in July but that the team was still strong enough to mount a Tour defense.“Wout is one of the best riders in the world, so it will be a big loss to not have him there. I hope that we can still do it without him,” he added.

At the Tour, Vingegaard is expected to go up against former teammate Primož Roglič, Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar as principal rivals.

“We always have a super strong team for the Tour de France, so I’m super happy with that," he said. "We’ll have to try and do what we always do, which is prepare as well as possible and make a good plan for the race, and we can only do the best we can. If that’s not enough then the other guys deserve to win.”