Jacco Verhaeren Adds Role with Jumbo-Visma Cycling Team
Dutch swim coach Jacco Verhaeren is branching out into a new coaching endeavor by joining Dutch cycling team Jumbo-Visma.
Verhaeren will join Jumbo-Visma in an advisory capacity. He will continue in his main role, as the performance director for the French Swimming Federation, a position he assumed in 2021.
“Over the past few years, I have often exchanged ideas with Jacco,” Jumbo-Visma sporting director Merijn Zeeman said in a statement. “After our best season, we have to keep looking for improvements and new insights. Together with (head of performance) Mathieu Heijboer, I have come to the conclusion that Jacco can provide us with these new ideas and different insights from another sport. We will start with a modest collaboration and hopefully develop it into something more.”
Jumbo-Visma in 2022 became the first team to have riders win all three Grand Tours, with Primos Roglic winning the Giro d’Italia, Jonas Vingegaard repeating as Tour de France champion and American Sepp Kuss winning the Vuelta a Espana. (Roglic will ride for a different team next season.)
Verhaeren has long been interested in cross-training and the implementation of interdisciplinary training methods. He’s also accomplished so much on the pool deck all across the world.
The 54-year-old ushered in a golden age of Dutch swimming thanks to the likes of Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge de Bruijn. From 2013-20, he helped revitalize Australian swimming, laying the groundwork for sensational performance at the Tokyo Olympics and the two World Aquatics Championships since.
He consulted for the German Swimming Federation before the FFN hired him as part of its Ambition Bleue project ahead of its home Games.
“I like to immerse myself in Team Jumbo-Visma’s approach because I can benefit from it,” Verhaeren said. “The link between equipment, nutrition, training and race strategy is fascinating. It inspires me a lot. What Jumbo-Visma does with my advice is up to them.”