Visma-Lease a Bike team manager Richard Plugge can be outspoken but is rarely angry. Yet the recent spate of high-speed crashes and injuries have hit his riders hard and left the Dutch manager sad and angry about the lack of progress in improving safety in professional cycling
.The Visma-Lease a Bike team leaders are amongst an estimated 40 WorldTour riders who have suffered serious crashes in the opening months of the 2024 season. Wout van Aert missed the biggest cobbled Classics and will not recover in time to ride the Giro d’Italia due to his Dwars door Vlaanderen crash, while Jonas Vingegaard is still in hospital in VitoriaThe two-time Tour de France winner suffered a fractured collarbone that needed surgery, fractured ribs and a pulmonary contusion and pneumothorax, probably caused by his chest trauma. It is still too early to confirm if
Vingegaard will be able to ride the Tour de France and fight for overall victory, but the start in Florence is only 77 days away. a week after he crashed at Itzulia Basque Country.“We have to see how they recover as people and only then we can think about when they return to cycling. At the moment it’s way too early, we need to let them rest and recover,” Plugge told Cyclingnews.
