Six Teams Outperform Visma | Lease a Bike

The upcoming overall victory of Jonas Vingegaard in the Vuelta a España is the ninth Grand Tour win secured by Visma | Lease a Bike. In the history of cycling, only six teams have won more Grand Tours.

In 2019, Primoz Roglic was the first rider to win a Grand Tour for the then Jumbo-Visma team, led by Richard Plugge and Merijn Zeeman. The Slovenian subsequently won the Vuelta twice more (2020 and 2021) riding in the Dutch team’s colors, and in 2023 he was the best in the Giro d’Italia.

Vingegaard brought home the long-awaited Tour de France triumphs in 2022 and 2023. Today, he is expected to claim his first Vuelta a España victory. The Spanish race was also won two years ago by Sepp Kuss representing the ‘killer bees’. That year, the entire podium was, in fact, occupied by Jumbo-Visma.

This season, Visma | Lease a Bike is once again performing strongly by winning two of the three Grand Tours. Simon Yates already took the Giro d’Italia this spring, and now Vingegaard has won the Vuelta. The Dane was also second behind Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France. With that, the Dutch WorldTeam can once again look back on a super successful season.

Richard Plugge and Simon Yates in the Giro d'Italia - photo: Cor Vos[/caption]

Since 1960, six teams have managed to win more Grand Tours. The Belgian Flandria (Molteni, Faema) and the Spanish Movistar (Banesto) each won as many as 14 Grand Tours. Super U (Renault) and INEOS Grenadiers (Team Sky) have 12 Grand Tours in their palmares. Meanwhile, BIC (St. Raphael) and Discovery Channel (United Postal) won ten Grand Tours. However, a caveat applies behind the American team due to the seven Tour de France wins stripped from Lance Armstrong.

Remarkably, Visma | Lease a Bike achieved the 9 overall Grand Tour wins within a timespan of seven years. In such a short period, only Molteni managed to win more Grand Tours. Eddy Merckx’s team won as many as eleven Grand Tours between 1968 and 1974 (seven years). Merckx triumphed in those years in the Giro d’Italia (1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974), Tour de France (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974) and Vuelta a España (1973).