Exclusive interview: Visma-Lease A Bike boss Richard Plugge on One Cycling, drawing on Dave Brailsford for inspiration, the Hessmann doping positive & losing Primož Roglič
Description
Taylor Swift, Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic and Tom Cruise.
No, that’s not the new backroom staff at Manchester United. Those are the names of the global superstars that front up the entertainment choices that we all make, each and every day. So how does five hours of road racing in the rain in Flanders compete against A-listers like that?
Well, in this RadioCycling special, we meet Richard Plugge, head of the world’s teams organisation the AIGCP, and the hugely successful manager of the Jumbo-Visma team that won all three Grand Tours last year – but also, crucially, the man telling cycling that it must change… or it will die.
In this interview, we quiz Plugge on the One Cycling project that he is adamant must be introduced in order to maintain cycling's position as a focus for popular sporting entertainment.
We ask him about the accusations made by rival team managers of "poaching" and a conflict of interest after Visma-Lease A Bike's signing of Cian Uijtdebroeks from rivals Bora-Hansgrohe.
Plugge also provides an update on the doping case involving the team's Michel Hessmann in which he reveals the basis of the young German racer's defence.
And, of course, we ask him about the loss of his team's most emblematic rider, Primož Roglič, and hear about the constantly evolving five-year plan designed to keep the Dutch team at the top of the WorldTour pecking order.
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