Visma-Lease a Bike team manager Richard Plugge can be outspoken but is rarely angry. Yet the recent spate of high-speed crashes and injuries have hit his riders hard and left the Dutch manager sad and angry about the lack of progress in improving safety in professional cycling.
The Visma-Lease a Bike team leaders are amongst an estimated 40 WorldTour riders who have suffered serious crashes in the opening months of the 2024 season. Wout van Aert missed the biggest cobbled Classics and will not recover in time to ride the Giro d'Italia due to his Dwars door Vlaanderen crash, while Jonas Vingegaard is still in hospital in Vitoria a week after he crashed at Itzulia Basque Country.
The two-time Tour de France winner suffered a fractured collarbone that needed surgery, fractured ribs and a pulmonary contusion and pneumothorax, probably caused by his chest trauma. It is still too early to confirm if Vingegaard will be able to ride the Tour de France and fight for overall victory, but the start in Florence is only 77 days away.
“We have to see how they recover as people and only then we can think about when they return to cycling. At the moment it’s way too early, we need to let them rest and recover,” Plugge told Cyclingnews.
As manager of a big-budget men’s and women’s programme, Plugge is also acutely aware of the financial damage crashes and injury can mean.
He cares about his riders but knows that a season or two without major success could see sponsors leave the team. Professional cycling is a precarious entertainment business as well as a sport.
“You have to protect your people but also think about the business. This is harmful to our sport,” Pugge said last week.
Plugge highlighted the damage the Itzulia crash could have on this year’s Tour de France.
“Crashes ruin our sport,” he said bluntly. “Everyone was looking forward to the big showdown at the Tour de France between Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel. Now we might not have that. It’ll be incredibly sad for the sport if any of them are unable to race the Tour de France. We have to do something about it.”
Plugge’s anger stems from seeing the drama and pain of the crashes and from the frustration that so little seems to have been done to protect the riders as race speeds, bike technology, road furniture and other factors combine to make professional cycling more dangerous.
“It's very difficult to see your riders lying on the ground and know that young people, their families and friends will suffer from it all too. It's not only Jonas or Wout that hurts me, it’s terrible seeing any rider crash hard,” Plugge said.
Plugge has irritated many in the sport, especially amongst his rival teams, for Visma-Lease a Bike’s recent dominance and the abrasive way he managed the AIGCP team association before being ousted in March.
He is also involved in the One Cycling project that hopes to attract outside investment, perhaps from Saudi Arabia, and create an alternative business model for teams by taking on the current status quo and dominance of the UCI and Tour de France organiser ASO.
However, Plugge has also worked hard for the wider good of cycling while making Visma-Lease a Bike one of the best teams in the sport. He helped create SafeR, the independent entity created and funded by the sport’s stakeholders to improve safety.
Cyclingnews understands the implementation and activation of the SafeR project has been delayed by bureaucratic reasons and debates on leadership even before it is fully active. That angers Plugge.
“A lack of action on safety makes me sad and really mad,” Plugge said, with anger but also choosing his words carefully.
“We have the beginning of the solution in the SafeR project. It’s basically ready to go but for political reasons, it's really dragging on. There's been an urgency about safety for years but how many wake up calls do we need?
“Why is there a delay? If safety improves, then safety improves, it's good for everybody,” he added.
Safety is important for everyone
Plugge hopes that everyone in the sport can understand the importance of safety in the sport, including the fans watching from afar.
He praised ASO for putting safety ahead of history and high speed by adding a chicane to the entrance of the Forest of Arenberg but highlighted how a race promotion video used footage of crashes.
“To laugh at ASO and the CPA for wanting the chicane and to question why it's needed is ridiculous, that's old thinking. Instead of wondering whether it is a joke, have a conversation with someone and make it better," he said in an apparent reply to Mathieu van der Poel’s doubts about the chicane.
Plugge is aware that some fans hope for a wet Paris-Roubaix to increase the visual drama of the racing over the cobbles.
“All the people sit in front of the television or are glued to social media, perhaps they should try to race over wet cobbles – it's like an ice rink, it’s not safe,” he said.
Plugge wants UCI President David Lappartient to take the lead on safety. The Frenchman is perhaps the only one with enough authority to bring all the other stakeholders together.
On Friday, Ineos Grenadiers team owner Jim Ratcliffe called on the ‘governing bodies’ to take “real action.”
Plugge agrees.
“I think David Lapparient should now pick up the glove, as we say in Dutch. And I think he will because he's very much in favour of improving safety,” Plugge said.
“Everyone has to play their part in improving safety. We all benefit from a safe sport: the rider obviously, but also their teams and sponsors, the race organisers, the UCI, and of course the fans and anyone who loves our sport.
“We all have to be ready to change the sport, even if we might not like the changes or if it costs us something. We’ll benefit in the long run. We have to put safety first.”
