Jobs in professional cycling: Grischa Niermann - Mastermind at Visma | Lease a Bike

One newspaper described Grischa Niermann as "Vingegaard's boss" in 2023, while Sportschau called him "the brains" of the Jumbo-Visma team. Born in Hanover, he has Jonas Vingegaard at many races and training camps and played a key role in the Dane's two Tour victories. He prepared the race for months, planned the decisive stage for the attack and set the race tactics day by day. A team of 15 coaches - "Performance and Race Coaches" - take care of the Dutch team, which now operates under the name of Visma | Lease a Bike training and racing.

"I'm responsible for race planning for the drivers and also the coaches," says Niermann, outlining his area of responsibility. "We do this together, especially with the Sporting Director Merijn Zeeman. The division of which sporting director is responsible for which races begins in the autumn. Between two and four sporting directors share the work." Niermann has the ideal qualifications for the job: He knows the bike races from the perspective of a professional cyclist. He rode for Team Rabobank for 13 years before working as a junior coach and, from 2013, as sporting director for the team from which today's Team Visma emerged.

Grischa Niermann: Tasks as Sports Director

He is known as a meticulous detail worker who has explored every corner of important races either on site or virtually. For Niermann, the season begins the day after the Tour de France is presented in Paris in autumn. That's when the intensive work on the route begins. Individual stages of the Tour de France 2024 he has already travelled by car and bike, and a good seven months before the race he has already developed a plan: "It will be discussed with all the racers at the training camp."

Months in advance, Niermann clarifies with everyone what role they should play in the season, in certain races and even in selected stages. "The guys who are travelling to the Tour or who we have in mind for it know our approach. We already have a relatively good idea of how we want to ride, where we see our strengths, which stages suit Jonas well. And I'm sure there will also be stages where the stakes are a little higher."

Even though Niermann already knows almost every kilometre of the Tour de France personally, the season is of course not just about the Tour of France. He is also involved in the classics - which offer different tasks on almost always the same routes. Foreign languages are important for the work of the sporting director. He mainly speaks English with his riders, is fluent in Dutch and French and can "converse in cyclist jargon" in Spanish and Italian. According to Niermann, it is an advantage to be able to follow the route radio in the local language during the Giro, Tour and Tour of Spain and "not have to wait for another language first".

Sports managers used to be more like logistics managers, today it's all about sport. - Grischa Niermann, Sports Director of Visma-Lease a Bike

200 days travelling

The work of the sporting director involves a lot of travelling: to training camps, track visits and races. The Hanoverian is on the road up to 200 days a year. A lot of time is taken up with route inspections, especially for the Tour de France. Niermann inspects around half of the stages on site and basically studies all of them on the computer using the VeloViewer programme. Many teams use this programme to document information about the route, which is useful on race day.

This goes so far that Niermann specifies on which side roundabouts should be ridden through for the entire route of the Tour. Fortunately, the routes of the classic one-day races do not change, or only in detail, and preparation for these races takes less time. After the spring classics, however, the focus is entirely on the Tour: "Then I also accompany the training camps to watch all the stages of the Tour with Jonas," says Niermann.

Grischa Niermann: Daily schedule at the Tour de France

For the former professional cyclist, the typical daily routine of the sports director at the Tour de France begins on the bike while "the boys are still asleep". After breakfast together, the bus takes them to the start. The stage is discussed using a PowerPoint presentation that Niermann has prepared long in advance. During the race, Niermann sits in the car and supports the captain of his team in case there are any problems. To be allowed to do this, he had to pass an exam with the UCI, as do all sports directors. After the stage, Niermann talks to each rider, in their room or during a massage, to recap the day, find out how they are feeling and go through the role for the next day. In the afternoon, Niermann sends a proposal for adapted tactics to the coaching team by e-mail, which is then discussed in the evening.

Looking back, sporting director Niermann recognises crystal clear what the cyclist Niermann did wrong in his career: "I often made the wrong decisions. For example, when I rode in a leading group, I was probably always the one who worked the hardest. And in the end, I was the weakest one who could no longer fight for victory." Hardly any other sports director is as fit as Grischa Niermann: he clocks up 15,000 kilometres a year on his bike computer. "It's all a question of organisation. Nobody misses me on the Tour de France between 7 and 8.30 in the morning."

The changing job of the sports director

As well-trained as he is, he can use joint training rides with the professionals for discussions: "If I ride along for three or four hours, I have much more time to talk and can hold coach discussions without having to make an appointment in the office." The job of sporting director has changed a lot in recent years and, according to Niermann's observations, is also being recognised more by the public. Among other things, he attributes this to the Netflix documentary "In the main field" which also shed light on the people around the racing drivers.

Commenting on the changed job description, he says: "In my racing days, the sporting director was more of a logistical manager who had to make sure that everyone got to the race. Now it's all about the sport, all the little details. We make race plans, we do post race reports, we think a lot about tactics. We work with the computer system that is used to prepare the races. That didn't exist ten years ago." Niermann says of his work: "I enjoyed my career as a professional cyclist, but I think I love the job I have now almost more. Also because I feel I can make a greater contribution to the team's success."