Visma – LAB’s ‘control room van’ banned from Tour de France

Well, that didn’t take long. Before the start of stage 1, the ASO – the organizer of the Tour de France – said sorry, no van, to Visma – Lease a Bike.

The van is a joint effort between title sponsor Visma, an enterprise software company, and BetCity, a Dutch online sports betting provider. It uses technology to analyse data in real time during the stages. This is then relayed to the team cars in the caravan. This data includes TV images, weather information and race radio to optimise race decisions. Visma’s data collection and visualisation, combined with BetCity’s ‘insights’, provide an additional tool for race personnel.

No, says the ASO

However, before the start of the race, the ASO stated: “The Team Visma-Lease a Bike ‘control room’ vehicle will not be permitted on any of the event premises and therefore will not be required to carry any vehicle accreditation.

After Visma announced the van, the UCI was quick to say it would look into the matter.

The UCI was already examining the van

“Our priority is to maintain the integrity of the sport, to ensure sporting fairness, fair access to technology and the primacy of man over machine,” the UCI said. A day later, ASO was quick to pull the plug on the van. When making the announcement, performance manager Mathieu Heijboer commented: “We are very pleased to have been able to develop the control room with our innovative partners. It allows us to collect and analyse even more live data and have a better overview of the race,” he said. “This will allow us to support the coaches in the car. And help them make the best possible tactical decisions more quickly.”

Visma says team should be allowed to use it

When told that the UCI was going to look into the matter, CEO Richard Plugge was unimpressed and said they were doing nothing wrong.

“We’re not breaking any rules. We use publicly available information for the control room,” he told Wielerflits. “We are in no way entering a gray area, we are securing the work of team leaders. We will inform the UCI, and they are of course welcome to come and take a look.