In a season as attritional as this one, Giro d’Italia plans carefully drawn up at winter training camps were never likely to survive intact until May. Visma-Lease a Bike’s squad has been recast several times in recent weeks, with a litany of misfortunes ruling out Wout van Aert, Wilco Kelderman and Koen Bouwman.
Like-for-like replacements are hard to come by, even on a roster as deep as theirs. When Bouwman was forced out by illness this week, the former Giro king of the mountains was replaced in the lineup by Tim van Dijke, a man better suited to serving as part of sprinter Olav Kooij’s lead-out train.
