Visma Reveals Tour de France 2026 Squad — Piganzoli Named as Van Aert’s Replacement
Published: June 23, 2026 | Tour de France 2026 | Team News
Visma | Lease a Bike confirmed their eight-man Tour de France 2026 roster at 16:00 CEST on Tuesday, June 23 and the headline call nobody fully expected: 23-year-old Italian Davide Piganzoli gets the nod over four other candidates to fill the spot vacated by Wout van Aert. Jonas Vingegaard heads to Barcelona on July 4 with two Grand Tour debutants in his support crew, a smaller rouleur engine than any of his three previous yellow jersey campaigns, and a climbing corps that just spent three weeks racing the Giro d’Italia in his service.
Visma | Lease a Bike’s 2026 Tour de France squad for Jonas Vingegaard:
- Jonas Vingegaard (29, DEN) — GC leader, 6th Tour start
- Matteo Jorgenson (26, USA) — high-mountain support, 5th Tour start
- Sepp Kuss (31, USA) — high-mountain support, 6th Tour start
- Victor Campenaerts (34, BEL) — rouleur, TTT engine, 5th Tour start
- Bruno Armirail (32, FRA) — rouleur, domestique, 4th Tour start
- Edoardo Affini (29, ITA) — time trial specialist, 2nd Tour start
- Per Strand Hagenes (22, NOR) — classics engine, Grand Tour debutant
- Davide Piganzoli (23, ITA) — climbing support, Grand Tour debutant
The team broadcast the announcement live on YouTube from its High Performance Center in Den Bosch, mixing rider interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and a squad reveal from Head of Racing Marc Reef. “We have one plan — to win,” Reef said during the broadcast. See the full confirmed team squads and GC leaders.
Why Piganzoli? The call that surprised everyone
Four names were genuinely in the frame when Van Aert’s elbow infection was confirmed last week: Ben Tulett, Wilco Kelderman, Bart Lemmen, and Jørgen Nordhagen. All four had logical cases. None of them got the call.
Piganzoli joined Visma last winter from Polti-VisitMalta, a small ProTeam with none of the infrastructure he stepped into in Den Bosch. He spent the Giro d’Italia working for Vingegaard, often the last man standing alongside the Dane on the hardest mountain stages, while still finishing eighth overall. That is not a number a pure domestique posts. Two weeks after Rome, he won La Route d’Occitanie, a five-stage French race, to confirm his legs had recovered.
The choice is not a like-for-like replacement for Van Aert. Nothing about this situation is. Van Aert could pace a flat stage into a headwind at 55km/h, win a bunch sprint, and then crack the top ten on a mountain finish the next day. Piganzoli does none of those things. What he does is climb at an elite level without cracking across three weeks and that is exactly what Visma’s 2026 route analysis told them they needed for the final eight stages.
Nordhagen, 21 and arguably the better pure climber among the candidates, abandoned the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes through illness and carries zero Grand Tour experience. Kelderman, 35, has the experience but not the current form. Lemmen rode three weeks at the Giro and the fatigue risk was too high. Tulett, 24, is the long-term project — not yet.
Piganzoli goes to Barcelona knowing the terrain. He has climbed alongside Vingegaard. He knows the communication, the pacing, the tempo before Vingegaard attacks. That counts for something in the mountains in week three.
The Van Aert void — what Visma actually lose
Wout van Aert is back on the bike. He posted Sunday, June 22, from a group ride organised by a children’s cancer charity, “first attempt to hold my bars again”, but he will not be racing in Barcelona. His elbow wound became infected after he raced and won a stage at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June, and the team pulled him the following week.
He has missed the Tour de France exactly once in eight years at Visma. This is that year.
What Visma lose is not just a rider. Van Aert won 10 Tour stages in his career, took the green jersey in 2022, and operated as Vingegaard’s insurance policy in every scenario the race threw at them. Need someone to close down a dangerous breakaway on a flat stage? Van Aert. Need a TTT engine on the Montjuïc ramp on stage 1? Van Aert. Need a rider who can sit at 400w for 20 minutes in a crosswind to split the peloton before a mountain stage? Van Aert.
None of the eight riders heading to Barcelona can do all three of those things. Campenaerts and Armirail handle the flat and TTT duties. Kuss and Jorgenson take care of the high mountains. Affini owns the individual time trial. Hagenes bridges the gap on rolling terrain. Piganzoli adds a second climbing card for the Alps. It is a functional squad, not a dominant one.
The 2026 route has 54,450 metres of climbing and five summit finishes. Flat stage muscle matters far less here than in a 2023 or 2025 edition. That is the calculation Visma made. Whether it holds up against Pogačar’s UAE squad, which will start stage 1 as the strongest team time trial unit in the WorldTour, becomes clear in Barcelona on July 4.
What to watch in Barcelona: the stage 1 problem
The Tour opens with a 19.7km team time trial. UAE Team Emirates-XRG have not lost a WorldTour TTT in 18 months. Pogačar, Del Toro, Almeida, McNulty, and Yates can all drive at 55km/h for 20km.
Van Aert was supposed to be Visma’s TTT engine alongside Campenaerts. He averaged 6.4 w/kg over 20 minutes at his peak in that discipline. Campenaerts holds the Hour Record, 55.547km set in 2019, and is their best remaining option. Affini posted the team’s top time-trial finish at last year’s stage 5 in Caen.
Visma will not beat UAE on July 4. The question is whether they limit the gap to under 20 seconds, which keeps Vingegaard in contention before a mountain has been climbed.
How to watch the team announcement
The full Visma | Lease a Bike YouTube live show from Den Bosch remains available on the team’s official YouTube channel. The broadcast runs approximately 45 minutes and includes individual rider interviews with Vingegaard, Jorgenson, Kuss, and Piganzoli, alongside Marc Reef’s tactical overview.
Watch the Visma | Lease a Bike YouTube Team Presentation
The Tour de France itself starts July 4 in Barcelona with the team time trial. Racing runs through July 26, finishing in Paris.
FAQ — Visma Tour de France 2026
VismaDavide Piganzoli, a 23-year-old Italian climber, takes Van Aert’s spot. Piganzoli finished eighth overall at the 2026 Giro d’Italia while working as Vingegaard’s mountain domestique, then won La Route d’Occitanie in early June.
Van Aert crashed in training before the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June 2026, injuring his elbow. He raced and won a stage at that race, but the wound subsequently became infected, forcing him out of the Tour. As of June 22, he described his recovery as being at the “first attempt to hold my bars again” stage.
Jonas Vingegaard leads the eight-man squad alongside Matteo Jorgenson, Sepp Kuss, Victor Campenaerts, Bruno Armirail, Edoardo Affini, Per Strand Hagenes, and Davide Piganzoli. Per Strand Hagenes and Davide Piganzoli both make their Tour de France debuts.
The 113th edition of the Tour de France starts July 4, 2026, in Barcelona, Spain, with a 19.6km team time trial. The race finishes in Paris on July 26.
Visma won the Giro d’Italia in 2026 with Vingegaard, confirming his form is there. The squad lacks Van Aert’s versatility across flat, rolling, and mountain terrain — but the 2026 route’s 54,450 metres of climbing and five summit finishes favours a climbing-heavy roster over a classics-style one. The gap to Pogačar’s UAE squad remains the central question.
Sources: Visma | Lease a Bike official YouTube announcement, June 23, 2026
