Visma's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 2026 kickoff will call for resilience

Kristof Ramon, Cor Vos

It's very early days yet in the 2026 season, but already the Visma-Lease a Bike team has been through what feels like a full year of setbacks.

Things got off to a dodgy start just after the calendar tipped over to the new year, with Wout van Aert's broken ankle at the Zilvermeercross on January 2. Just days later, Simon Yates made his out-of-the-blue announcement that he was retiring, effective immediately. Shortly on the heels of that came Jonas Vingegaard's crash after a training encounter with an amateur rider.

The Secret Pro: Don’t follow me down the hillJonas Vingegaard’s training crash is the sort of nonsense the internet is made for: lots of shouting, lots of people who are very sure their perspective is DEFINITELY RIGHT. Except they’re not.Escape CollectiveThe Secret ProA broken ankle at Zilvermeercross marked an abrupt end to Van Aert's cyclocross campaign and a setback for his planned road program.

This week, the bad news continued when an illness bug prevented Visma from fielding a full team at the Tour of Oman: Owain Doull and Axel Zingle didn't start and then it knocked Sepp Kuss out of the race. Then Bart Lemmen crashed out with a wrist injury. The team is down to just three riders in the race. And Menno Huising broke a collarbone at the Tour Down Under. Of the team's 29 riders on contract to start the year, just 22 are currently available to race, although that number will fluctuate in the coming weeks.

The final hit? Shades of Yates' stunning about-face, Tim Heemskerk will also leave the team effective immediately. You might not know the name, but the coach is an eight-year veteran of the organization and is largely responsible for overseeing its all-important group of stage racers. He's the guy who developed Vingegaard into a two-time Tour de France winner, who has been at least partly responsible for the progression of Matteo Jorgenson, and also worked with Yates, whose stunning Giro d'Italia win was one of the standout performances of last year for the team.

Remco Evenepoel is quickly making Red Bull his teamWith four wins in his first five races of the year, the team’s marquee signee is making an early claim to top status in the leadership hierarchy.Escape CollectiveDane Cash

Meanwhile, Remco Evenepoel is on such a win streak that his biggest issue is batting down speculation he's peaking too soon. (Aside: This is silly talk. Riders have multiple peaks in a season; Evenepoel is a seasoned pro working with top-tier coaches and sports scientists; this narrative pops up every year around some rider or other – usually Tadej Pogačar or Mathieu van der Poel – and it's almost always a nothingburger.)

But I don't think it's too early to note Visma's struggles. Already the parallels to 2024 are uncomfortably close, with the team's two stars suffering early setbacks. If there's a silver lining, it's that said setbacks are so early that there's plenty of time to recover (and Van Aert's return so far seems well ahead of schedule). And how the team fares the rest of this long season to come likely depends on how riders respond as a group, which relies on one key quality all athletes and teams need.

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