Down on luck and momentum – The nightmare continues for Wout van Aert and Visma-Lease a Bike

It never rains, but it pours. Visma-Lease a Bike's men's team, who seemed to possess a Midas touch just a couple of years ago, have had one of the worst starts to a season you could possibly imagine.

Wout van Aert’s withdrawal from Saturday’s season-opening Classic, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, is just the latest in a string of blows that have seen the Dutch team reeling.

Van Aert’s winter has been eventful enough. The team’s Classics star fractured his ankle in the cyclocross fields at the start of January, casting doubt over his preparation for a crucial season in which he’ll look to finally land a cobbled Monument.

The Belgian was eventually able to start moving up through the gears, but his all-important altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada was marred by foul weather, meaning he couldn't train outdoors for a number of days. The planned start at the Omloop Nieuwsblad remained on track, but that has now been ripped up by illness.

At this stage, we don't know how severe the illness is, or whether he'll be able to race Le Samyn as planned on Tuesday, but missing the Omloop represents a major setback. Even if it doesn't end up holding him back too much in terms of form and fitness, it's a significant psychological blow.

Van Aert, after all, has hardly had the smoothest ride over the cobblestones over the years. COVID in 2022, a terribly timed puncture at Paris-Roubaix in 2023, and broken bones before Flanders and Roubaix in 2024 are just some of the misfortunes that have befallen him. And while his great rival Mathieu van der Poel has racked up eight Monuments in serene fashion, Van Aert is stuck on one – the 2020 Milan-San Remo.

"Ik moet juist niks!" was his famous cry as he won the E3 Saxo Classic in 2023 – "I don't have to prove anything!" But there have been increasing suggestions that the pressure and expectation piled onto his shoulders in Belgium have indeed weighed him down.

Just look at last year's Dwars door Vlaanderen, where Neilson Powless somehow picked off Van Aert and two of his teammates in a seemingly insurmountable three-against-one situation. Van Aert made the call not to attack as a team but rather to ride for a sprint for himself. It backfired dramatically, in what was a hugely embarrassing moment for both rider and team.

Van Aert admitted he'd been "too eager" and that perhaps has something to do with the 2023 Gent-Wevelgem, which he effectively donated to teammate Christophe Laporte. Van Aert was widely criticised by those who felt such selflessness was not in keeping with the mentality of a true 'winner'.

Being called both too selfless and too selfish, he must have felt he could not win. And he wasn't winning races, tallying up just two victories in 2025 – albeit significant ones at the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France – and 12 in the past three seasons.

All that is to say that, going into such a crucial year, Van Aert could have done with a clean run, a cool head, and a bit of momentum. Events so far in 2026 have very much conspired against him in that regard. The Spring campaign already looked like a challenge against Van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar – who has been racking up Monuments seemingly without a care in the world – but it must now seem that touch more daunting.

Visma's 2026 woes

If this is a blow for Van Aert on an individual level, it’s also another kick in the teeth of his Visma-Lease a Bike team.

The news follows the disrupted season preparation of the team’s other marquee rider, Jonas Vingegaard. The two-time Tour de France winner suffered a crash in training and then got sick, forcing him to upend his early-season plans. Out went the season debut at the UAE Tour, and in came a block of racing in early March in the form of Paris-Nice.

That wasn’t the only upheaval for Vingegaard, who has lost his long-time coach. The Dane had worked with Tim Heemskerk for the past seven years, hitting the sort of form that saw him twice down Pogačar to win the Tour de France, as well as last year’s Vuelta a España and a slew of other races. The loss of that partnership would have come as a blow at any point in time, but the news came only in February.

Vingegaard is now working with Mathieu Heijboer, the team’s head of performance. Heijboer has overseen the team’s coaching operation for a number of years, so there is familiarity there, but it’s also true that Heijboer works with several other key Visma riders and must now adjust his priorities, with no new coaching hire planned.

The squad as a whole has taken a hit, with the departure of a number of key riders. Dylan van Baarle, Tiesj Benoot, Olav Kooij, and Cian Uijtdebroeks were among the top-level names who have moved to rival teams, with no incomings of a similar stature to speak of.

All that was before we got to the Simon Yates debacle, with the Giro d’Italia champion suddenly deciding to rip up his contract and end his career on January 7. Yates’ decision has deprived the team of a key GC leader and super-domestique for Vingegaard, leaving a hole that simply could not be filled a week into the new year.

On the women’s side, the team have also lost one of the sport’s biggest talents in Fem van Empel, who has put her career on hold due to a lack of “enjoyment and motivation”.

Van Empel’s and Yates’ decisions have fed into a growing conversation surrounding burnout – another area where Visma-Lease a Bike have found themselves the subject of negative headlines. Former pro Tom Dumoulin suggested riders can feel ‘caged’ by the structure at Visma, which Uijtdebroeks noted had become “even more disciplined” since the departure of team director Merijn Zeeman at the end of 2024.

Van Aert, along with the team manager Richard Plugge, has found himself speaking out to push back on that narrative in the early months of 2026 – another distraction.

And then we come to the team’s very future. It was revealed only this month that title sponsor Visma is taking a step back, leaving the team with a significant sponsorship void to fill.

At this stage, there is no question about the team failing to survive beyond 2026, but there’s a big difference between surviving and thriving, especially in the ever-more competitive pro cycling arms race.

Visma topped the UCI rankings in 2023 with victories in all three Grand Tours, but the pace of change since then has been eye-watering. More money has continued to flow into Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates squad, while Lidl-Trek and Decathlon CMA CGM have entered the super-team echelons with big-money sponsors who have taken ownership of the organisations.

Visma seemed like the dominant, pioneering force for a number of years in the early 2020s. Now it almost feels like they could get left behind.

Plugge is leading the sponsorship search, and the tone is bullish so far, but as long as that big-budget backer is not secured, the question marks over the very identity of the team will creep in and seep through the whole structure.

And so, as the 2026 season reaches its traditional starting point at the Opening Weekend, Visma-Lease a Bike find themselves tossed around in troubled waters. Where will it end? Just watch Matthew Brennan do the Omloop-Kuurne double and completely flip the narrative...