How Wout van Aert’s dramatic Roubaix win could change Visma’s future

Standing in the infield of the Vélodrome André-Pétrieux in Roubaix, team boss Richard Plugge may well have been the second happiest man in the world that day. His embrace with Van Aert said it all: joy, relief, and a deep sense of redemption.

Speaking to NOS, the Dutchman could barely contain his pride.

"Wout showed he can go head to head with the very best in the world and fight for the win. We’re incredibly proud. I was just standing there with him, both of us in tears. What he’s gone through, and the way he keeps coming back… and now finishing it off like this, it’s just incredible.”

For Plugge, the victory goes beyond an individual triumph.

“We believe we can compete for Monument wins, and today we proved it again,” he said. “Wout was already on the podium in Milan-Sanremo, but this confirms it. As a team, we are still operating at the very highest level. Last year we won two Grand Tours and the women’s Tour de France, and now we show we are still right there."

That statement becomes even more meaningful when placed in a broader context. Over a decade ago, Plugge helped reshape the team then known as LottoNL-Jumbo after a turbulent period following Rabobank’s withdrawal. 

Together with Merijn Zeeman, he built an organisation grounded in a strong internal culture: collective responsibility, constant innovation and a willingness to challenge convention in pursuit of performance.

Combined with key signings such as Dylan Groenewegen, Primož Roglič and later Wout van Aert, Jonas Vingegaard and Sepp Kuss, the team steadily rose to the top of the sport. That journey peaked in 2023, when they became the first team ever to win all three Grand Tours in a single season.

But success changed the perspective, and between 2022 and 2023, Visma went from being the hunters to the hunted. The results remained strong. In 2024 and 2025, the team collected 32 and 40 victories respectively, including two Grand Tours. Yet the dynamic had shifted. Visma was no longer dictating races on their own terms.

In the Tour de France, they could not match Tadej Pogačar. In the Monuments, they were repeatedly outmanoeuvred by Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel, who together dominated the biggest one-day races.

Until now. On the cobbles of Roubaix, Van Aert showed that he can still seize control of a race, even against the very best, all at their peak. For Plugge and his organisation, it restores belief.

“We’ve shown that we can still compete at the very highest level,” Plugge said. “That’s incredibly important for everyone in and around the team, from the riders to the staff, the soigneurs, the mechanics, everyone who was here today.”

Belief alone, however, is no longer enough.

Modern cycling increasingly resembles an arms race, where financial power plays a decisive role. Teams such as UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Decathlon CMA CGM continue to raise the bar, with brands like Lidl, Red Bull and Decathlon even taking equity stakes in the teams.

In that landscape, Team Visma | Lease a Bike finds itself at a crossroads; still among the elite, but also under pressure to secure new investment in order to keep pace with the sport’s accelerating top tier.

According to sources within the team, shared with Domestique, discussions with major international partners are ongoing. Few statements are more powerful than a victory like this: emotional, iconic and impossible to ignore.

From that perspective, Wout van Aert’s triumph may not only belong in the history books, it may well help define the future of the team itself.