• Friday, July 12, 2024 at 1:00 PM
Special With three stage wins and a lead of 107 points in the battle for the green jersey, Biniam Girmay is already one of the great heroes in this Tour de France. His team Intermarché-Wanty confirms that the drive for professionalization, which started three years ago with the arrival of performance manager Aike Visbeek, is the key to this success. The Zaankanter is the brain behind the historic victories of the first dark African stage winner in the Tour.
A somewhat tall lanky guy with long hair is one of the pawns in the rock-solid AGU amateur team of Egbert Koersen in 1998. Having come through from cycling club DTS, Aike Visbeek joins the training team of the then TVM formation of Cees Priem and rides in the amateurs in the same team as Bram Schmitz, Peter Schep, Danny Stam, Thorwald Veneberg and Remmert Wielinga. A persistent knee injury puts an end to his active career, following which the Zaankanter focuses on his studies.
After working as a team manager at DTZ and a Swedish amateur team, Visbeek ended up at Argos-Shimano, Iwan Spekenbrink’s team, in 2013. He was one of the regulars there who experienced the rise from a modest professional team to one of the most prominent WorldTour teams. First successful with Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb, then winning major prizes with Tom Dumoulin, Michael Matthews and Warren Barguil.
In his first years with the team, Visbeek has difficulty adapting to the structure that Spekenbrink has set out. Although it must certainly be said that in those years Argos-Shimano and later Giant-Shimano and Team Sunweb were a forerunner in the peloton in terms of professional guidance.
Since 2015, Visbeek has grown into the person ultimately responsible for the three major tours and can therefore also follow his own feelings a bit more. The decisive riders within Team Sunweb are full of praise for his approach. For example, he is the man behind Tom Dumoulin’s Giro d’Italia victory in 2017 and the Limburger’s second places in the Giro and Tour of 2018. Because of his clear explanation, the media also seeks him out daily in the major tours.
Aike Visbeek (right) with his golden crow Biniam Girmay – photo: Raymond Kerckhoffs
After returning home from the 2018 Tour, he is cynically asked by the team’s management at the office what it’s like to be a famous Dutchman. When he then dares to crack critical notes regarding matters within the team during an internal meeting, he is told shortly followingwards that his contract will not be extended.
Within Spekenbrink’s team, keeping personalities small, whether they are top riders or top team leaders, is more important than the quality of that individual. For that reason, it is also clear to Merijn Zeeman in 2012 that there is no future for him within this team. Zeeman would therefore like to bring Visbeek to Jumbo-Visma, but because of their long-standing, friendly relationship, the Alkmaarder thinks it is better to keep private and work separate.
Responsibility
On paper, Visbeek takes a step back in 2020 by joining the SEG training team, but he does learn to bear responsibility for an entire team here. When Intermarché-Wanty is promoted to the WorldTour in 2021, team owner Jean-François Bourlart knocks on Visbeek’s door. The Dutchman has experienced the process from Argos-Shimano to Team Sunweb, from a modest team to a top team. With Visbeek, De Waal hopes to bring in the man who can set out the professionalization step by step.
The lessons that Visbeek learned at Team Sunweb with Tom Dumoulin & co in the field of professionalization are an important guideline for him in the transformation of Intermarché-Wanty. An adjustment of the structure is necessary, with a greater focus on the development of talent. Because the budget is limited, young talents must become the basis for new success.
Visbeek also focuses on professionalizing the nutrition team, setting up a collaboration with the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, recruiting new team leaders and trainers, attracting R&D experts and, among other things, introducing periodization. A schedule of preparations and peak periods is set out for each rider. For the first time, clear expert groups are being used to give full attention to the various performance activities.
So there is no investment in expensive riders, but a larger part of the budget is invested in strengthening the internal organization. This professionalization does not affect the family character of the team. Of course it is a disadvantage that the Walloon team works with the smallest budget in the WorldTour, but you can also see the advantage that the small Goliath wants to fight once morest the big rich giants. That everyone pulls together within the team.
Photo: Cor Vos
Visbeek has two conversations with the African super talent Biniam Girmay halfway through his first year at Intermarché-Wanty (2021). First a video call and then a meeting at the team’s office. The combination of the passionate character of the team and the new working method appeals to Girmay. He immediately indicates that the team’s way of thinking and working is also his own and rejects a number of offers from the richest teams.
Architect
From that moment on, the North Hollander is the main architect behind the Eritrean’s rise. In 2022, Girmay immediately hits the mark by winning Gent-Wevelgem and a little later also winning a stage in the Giro d’Italia. After that, the African super talent is unable to repeat his results at the highest level for a year and a half due to crashes, injuries and all sorts of minor issues.
Although there is certainly pressure when the only real star of his team performs less, Visbeek knows how to keep calm. In three years, the team has managed to book 54 victories with relatively young riders, which is proof that the process is also paying off in the broadest sense. Men like Laurenz Rex, Gerben Thijssen and Hugo Page are taking clear steps towards the top at a young age.
Visbeek emphasizes time and once more that Girmay’s potential is definitely still there, but that the coaching must further optimize the preconditions to get it out. A 23-year-old rider from Africa with a completely different culture requires special attention and a different approach.
Visbeek knows how to enforce his method within the team. Team owner Bourlart has already indicated that Visbeek is the architect behind the team’s successes. That he has managed to turn the tide within Intermarché-Wanty. The Zaankanter himself remains with both feet on the ground.
Although he now enjoys Girmay’s successes perhaps even more than the golden years of Dumoulin, Matthews and Barguil. “I am involved in the process from the beginning to the end. I bear all the responsibility, manage the people, motivate them. I am very aware that we do this as a team. We all put a lot of time and energy into it. I think it is especially great that this is rewarded,” Visbeek said last week.
Although Visbeek also emphasizes that a financial step has to be taken. One to retain their talents and two to keep the staff and training facilities up to standard. At the beginning of the year, the entire team works in Spain under optimal conditions in terms of training, coaching and nutrition, which is why you see that the team as a whole comes out very strong in the first races of the season. Later, there is only money for a few riders to complete an altitude training camp or training camp at a high level. Then you see that some guys fall behind the competition once more.
In the professionalization drive that Visbeek is undergoing with Intermarché-Wanty, extra budget must be found in the coming months. With Girmay’s groundbreaking victories in this Tour de France, you would think that there would be enough interest from the business community. Then this is only the beginning of the cycling fairy tale of Girmay and Visbeek and the words of Shakira will be sung much more often in the peloton: “This time for Africa”.
