If you can rely on Grischa Niermann for one thing, it’s a good quote. Via his presence in Netflix’s Tour de France: Unchained, the Visma-Lease a Bike sports director has gained a reputation for his sometimes colourful outbursts. Who could forget his repeated insistence that Wout van Aert is "a fucking motorbike"? Who could forget his numerous other explosive F-bombs, when someone wins or something goes wrong or most other times anything happens?
Now, after the Opening Weekend of Classics season he’s added another quirky line to his repertoire: the team’s French Classics star Christophe Laporte is, he says, “an important pawn”.
Now, I’ll allow that there is some potential for a lost-in-translation moment here. Niermann is German. Visma-Lease a Bike is a Dutch team. The remarks were made, in Dutch, on the podcast De Rode Lantaarn, and from there translated to English. Maybe a ‘pawn’ in Dutch is something broader than a specific (and, famously, shitty) chess piece. Maybe Grischa’s gone completely rogue and is riffing about porn, or prawns, and not pawns. Who knows. But in the interests of journalistic rigour, I think it’s only right that we extend the metaphor to its logical conclusion and figure out just what’s going on at Visma-Lease a Bike.
It’s time to answer some very important questions. Questions like, does Grischa Niermann understand chess? Is everyone else on the team a designated chess piece? And if so, what chess pieces would they be, and why?
The pawns
Haven’t watched The Queen’s Gambit? Haven’t followed Hans Niemann’s career? No matter: chess is an ancient and beloved board game, played on an alternating black and white eight-by-eight grid, with 16 pieces per player. The lowliest of these pieces is the pawn. There are eight of them per side.
It’s probably important here to note that there is no distinction between these pawns – they each move in the same way: one square at a time, straight forward (unless it’s the opening move, and then they can get two squares in). I suppose, by virtue of how a chess game shakes out, one pawn can feasibly take on greater importance than another – especially if it makes it to the other end of the board and becomes a queen – but by the letter of the rules, all pawns are created equal.
Visma-Lease a Bike is a pretty stacked squad, but to describe Very Good Bicyclist Christophe Laporte as a pawn – even an important one – seems a bit of a slight. Dude has been a European champion, a World Champs silver medallist, an Olympics bronze medallist, a Tour de France stage winner, and the winner of multiple Classics. Pull your head in, Grischa.
So who are the pawns on Visma-Lease a Bike? Tricky question: there are more riders (29) than chess pieces (16 per side) so, by virtue of that fact, 13 of them aren’t even pawns. That’s brutal news for the likes of Tijmen Graat, Menno Huising, Loe Van Belle, and Matthew Brennan. Accomplished cyclists one and all, but probably not chess pieces in Grischa Niermann’s tortured analogy.
After careful consideration, I have decided Visma-Lease a Bike’s pawns are:
- Edoardo Affini
- Victor Campanaerts
- Wilco Kelderman
- Thomas Gloag
- Christophe Laporte (I disagree, but Niermann’s word on this has to stand)
- Bart Lemmen
- Cian Uijtdebroeks
- Attila Valter
Rooks
A good piece! Looks like a castle, can move in straight lines all over the board but can’t jump over others. I’d have Laporte as a rook, personally, but he’s already spoken for. For very different reasons I’m going to designate the following as rooks:
- Steven Kruijswijk (big shoulders. Has finished in the top five of all Grand Tours and almost won one of them until he rode into a snowdrift. Seems quite rook-coded as a result).
- Olav Kooij (fast in a straight line).
Knights
Real horsey fellas, a bit more versatile than the rook. Can move in L-shapes and jump over other pieces; less flashy but you’ve gotta keep your eye on ‘em.
- Tiesj Benoot (sometimes has a charismatic moustache; nicely swashbuckling)
- Simon Yates (one of a pair of twins, so he needed to be either a rook, bishop, or knight. Probably destined to be more of a bishop in the Visma squad, but he’s new so this is where he lands).
Bishops
Although in broad strokes these are of equal flashiness to the rook – although they move in diagonal rather than straight lines – they sit much closer to the inner sanctum on the board. I’d like to imagine that the bishops also provide some emotional and spiritual counsel to the royals, helping them in their time of need. As such, there are two clear candidates for these roles:
- Sepp Kuss (maybe the sport’s leading super-domestique, having played a key role in six Grand Tour victories for other riders, and winning a Vuelta a España of his own)
- Matteo Jorgenson (has won prestigious races, finished top 10 at the Tour de France last year and, in Kuss’s absence at that race, stepped up in a big way. Also useful at the Classics, where he can help out the queen).
The queen
Most versatile piece on the board. Can climb, can sprint, can time trial; useful from the Classics to Grand Tours. Of all chess pieces, the one that is most akin to a fucking motorbike. Also: I reckon queens probably smell pretty good, and there's only one guy in the peloton (surely!) who's a major investor in a luxury candle company.
- Wout van Aert
The king
All kings were once a sickly boy prince. There’s one undisputed top-dog of Visma’s Grand Tour line-up, and that is:
- Jonas Vingegaard
Finally: thanks to Cafe_Rider, SlowRider, Caleb Hayter and Raphaël on our Discord for the nudge to write this.
Did we do a good job with this story?
