Some days are perfect. In professional cycling, where there are so many variables and so much can go wrong, these kinds of days are hard to come by. This is the beautiful, tragic nature of this sport – the highs are so desperately high, the lows are so damagingly low. It is the slim existence of that chance – however obsolete – to taste the high which keeps bike racers pinning numbers on their backs, season after season.
As the afternoon sun turned from blazing white to a warm orange in Rome on Sunday, casting an amber glow across the city’s rugged ruins, the team of Visma-Lease a Bike stood on the Giro d’Italia podium. As general classification and final stage winners, they were living through the high. Simon Yates was lifted up by his teammates in the maglia rosa, Olav Kooij’s gold medal glinted in the light, team boss Richard Plugge even stood on the podium in a bold pink blazer and matching sunglasses – this was a moment of divine, idyllic euphoria for the Dutch team.
Between the eight riders who stood as part of Visma-Lease a Bike’s Giro squad on that podium, there are stories of redemption, setbacks and determination that have led up to the perfection of this day. Stage winner Kooij, for example, broke his collarbone in a crash just five weeks before La Corsa Rosa began. His sports director, Marc Reef admitted after the stage that the 23-year-old’s preparation for the race had been less than ideal, and that he’d suffered through the mountains of the last nine stages in order to get his chance to sprint for a win again on the final day of the race.
Then, there is the well-documented story of Yates’ redemption arc, taking pink on Saturday’s Finestre stage with a brave, bolshy attack on the very same climb that he lost almost 40 minutes on seven years ago. We cannot forget Wout van Aert, either, who has gone from triumph to tragedy and back again more times than we can count. It was only a few months ago that the Belgian rider was in the firing line for a winless Classics season, mocked and criticised for his performance in Dwars door Vlaanderen, especially. Now, after the Giro d’Italia, he is being lauded as the most valuable teammate in the world, not to mention getting his own stage win in Siena during the second week.
Team Visma-Lease a Bike know what it feels like to be down. Their perfect day in Rome was earned by brotherhood, selflessness and sacrifice, as well as the ability of each rider to hold on to belief, regardless of the noise around them.
“After today we will have some pictures we will keep forever and look back on with great memories,” Kooij grinned in his post-race press conference. “We couldn't have hoped for a better weekend. Saturday was already great for the team and now I wanted to give everything I had left. We had a plan, but in the sprints it is never easy to execute. We were very committed to making something of it with the whole team. Edo and Wout went all-in and we were perfect.”
Van Aert shared a similar sentiment to his young teammate after executing a textbook lead-out for Kooij in the final sprint of stage 21: “It is very special. Difficult to describe. We had hoped for this as a team, but we did not expect it to be possible in the final weekend. This will stay with us.”
As each Visma rider was interviewed after the race, there was an overwhelming sense that the team themselves were yet to process the gravity of their achievements. The perfection of this Giro for the Dutch team is such a rarity in cycling, and the feeling of disbelief is only exacerbated by the number of times that they have felt what it is like to be on the other side of it.
“I am super happy with this conclusion. Edo [Edoardo Affini] and Wout did an incredible lead-out, after which Olav finished it off fantastically. It is more than the icing on the cake, after we won the race with Simon Yates, of course,” sports director Reef told media after the stage.
With the maglia rosa packed in his suitcase, finally his after so many years of trying, Yates is the Visma man in the brightest spotlight as this race concludes. He has repeatedly reiterated, though, that none of this would have been possible without his teammates around him. At the Giro d’Italia, Visma-Lease a Bike have proven that perfect days in the sport of cycling can be possible – but not alone.
“We finished in such a great way with the stage win, everyone is on cloud nine. We are starting to realise what we have accomplished here, we had a great Giro,” Yates said to the media in his final interview in Rome. “Ever since I turned professional I dreamed of winning the best races and the Grand Tours are the pinnacle of that. We sacrifice a lot, and we need to enjoy this.”
