Dylan van Baarle: We’ll miss Roglič’s punchy power but Vingegaard can still improve at the Tour de France

Jumbo-Visma head into the new year without the talismanic talents of Primož Roglič and his powerful uphill sprint, but super domestique and Classics specialist Dylan van Baarle still believes that the Dutch team can reach incredible heights, even if they must recalibrate expectations.

Few would dispute that Jumbo-Visma were the best team in the men’s pro peloton in 2023, winning all three Grand Tours and snaffling all of the podium spots at the Vuelta a España to close out a historic campaign.

Read more: Jumbo-Visma Team Talk: What does life after Roglič look like?

There were some inevitable blemishes on a near-perfect season, with the team unable to win a Monument, and some sponsorship headaches before Lease a Bike agreed to come on board as a co-sponsor for 2024. For Van Baarle, too, the 2023 season had mixed results.

The former Paris-Roubaix winner claimed his maiden win in Jumbo-Visma colours on his very first outing for the team at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in February but he fell short in the major spring objectives due to crashes and illness. Now rested after a holiday in Curaçao with his partner and fellow pro athlete, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the Dutch rider is ready to build up his fitness before December’s next team training camp.

“I started training around the first week of November and I’m in a good place right now. I don’t know the entire plan for next year as the team is still planning everything but I assume that I’ll have a similar season, starting with Opening Weekend and then either Paris-Nice or Tirreno Adriatico, the cobbled Classics and then preparation into the Tour,” Van Baarle told GCN during his vacation.

“In Flanders this year I was sick and in Paris-Roubaix, I crashed out. And at E3 I crashed out too so I want to go to these races again and try to be the best as possible. I want to be in the final of the Classics with Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte. I want to compete against Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel. Then I want to play another big role in the Tour de France squad before taking a direction towards the Olympics. They’re the main objectives. Our goal will be to win one of the Monuments.”

Van Baarle’s exact role in the Spring Classics has yet to be determined and while he will likely have his own chances to win, the volume of responsibilities placed on his shoulders will depend on the schedule of Van Aert. The Belgian rider has been repeatedly linked with a GC role at the Giro d’Italia, and while the rider has confirmed his participation, Jumbo-Visma has remained silent on the all-rounder’s specific duties.

Read more: Wout van Aert: The main goal for 2024 is the Giro d'Italia

Van Baarle has followed the developing story from his holiday, catching up with the European press in between leisurely rides and turtle spotting in the ocean. Like most observers, he’s keen to see exactly what Van Aert’s aims will be for the first half of the season. 

“He’s obviously a superstar and a big rider so I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes to the Giro,” van Baarle said. “I read it all in the media but that’s all I’ve heard so far. It would be interesting to see him go for GC but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. It would be cool. It’s not an impossible idea because for sure he’s done some great things in the Tours that he’s done.

"Being a GC rider is different and maybe that means he needs to scrap something else and I don’t know if that’s a possibility for him but for sure he has a really big engine. For GC, we just have to see.”

Even with Van Aert at the Giro, Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour and Sepp Kuss at the Vuelta, the chances of Jumbo retaining all three Grand Tour titles will be tough. UAE Team Emirates have strengthened in the winter, while Ineos Grenadiers and other teams will be looking to close the gap to the team in yellow and black.

Van Baarle knows that repeating the historic success of 2023 will be hard to achieve, and the departure of Roglič to Bora-Hansgrohe is not a hole that can be filled overnight. The 31-year-old does have faith in the progression of Vingegaard though, with the Dane proving to be unbeatable in the last two editions of the Tour de France.

Read more: 'It’d be better to be teammates' – Jonas Vingegaard prepares to race against Primož Roglič

“It’s not going to happen again, that we go for three big Grand Tour victories again. We lost Primož and he won a lot of races this year. But we’ll make other goals and try and reach them. We can still be successful and we want to win the Tour de France and other races again. All of the objectives will be finalised at the training camps though,” Van Baarle said.

“Primož is one of those guys who is super strong and who has a super strong sprint, so he wins a lot of races. We’ll maybe miss that punchy power in the uphill finishes but we just need to look at ourselves, and how strong Jonas was at the Tour. I think he was even better than in 2022, so if he can carry on that progress then maybe he can come close to Primož on those shorter uphill finishes."