(Paris) The Jumbo-Visma team, which dominates world cycling with stars like two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard and Wout Van Aert, will be called Visma-Lease a Bike from January 1, 2024, it has been announced the Dutch team on Friday.
This name change follows the withdrawal of the main sponsor, the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo, whose new managers have modified the marketing strategy.
Visma has been present as a jersey sponsor for five years now. Lease a Bike, which was already a secondary sponsor this year, is a Belgian company subsidiary of the Pon group which offers companies the rental of fleets of bicycles available to their employees.
The company operates notably in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. It is looking to expand into other European countries and the United States.
“This strengthened partnership represents another big step forward which provides us with the necessary resources to further develop and progress as a team,” Dutch team manager Richard Plugge said in a statement.
The Jumbo-Visma is coming off an extraordinary 2023 season during which it won the three grand tours (Giro with the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, Tour de France with the Dane Jonas Vingegaard and Vuelta with the American Sepp Kuss).
In Spain, the “Hornets” even signed an unprecedented hat-trick, Kuss ahead of Vingegaard and Roglic.
The team will lose Roglic next season – the Slovenian has signed with the German structure Bora-Hansgrohe – but still counts in its ranks the Belgian champion Wout Van Aert and the French Christophe Laporte as well as the Dutch Marianne Vos among the women .
The doubts that arose about the future of its partnership with Jumbo had fueled reflections this fall on a possible merger of the team with the Belgian formation Soudal Quick-Step, another stronghold of cycling, putting the peloton under tension before this solution is ultimately abandoned.