Jumbo Visma's Tour de France preparations suffered another blow this week with the decision that Steven Kruijswijk will miss Paris-Nice in March. [The Dutch rider, who finished third in last year's Tour de France, was scheduled to make his 2020 debut alongside Primoz Roglic. However, less than 24 hours after the team told Cycling News that Kruijswijk was "100% fit," news broke that the 32-year-old would not race until the Volta a Catalunya in late March.

Kruijswijk's preparations for 2020, already hit by a knee injury in January that forced him to ease up on training, have now been set back after teammate Tom Dumoulin was forced to postpone his start for a second time.

Dumoulin missed the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana earlier this month due to health problems and was also removed from the Jumbo Visma roster for the Tirreno-Adriatico in March due to health issues.

The former Giro d'Italia winner will undergo further medical examinations, but his team has already ruled out Epstein-Barr (a virus that has infected Mark Cavendish and several others in recent years). With Dumoulin and Kruijswijk sidelined, Jumbo-Visma is left with only Tour de France leader Roglic. The Slovenian is currently training in Tenerife and will begin his campaign as the sole leader of the Dutch team in Paris-Nice. Kruijswijk was headed to Tenerife with Roglic, but according to a Jumbo Visma spokesperson, "He had a knee problem at the beginning of January. As a result, he missed the Alicante training camp last month. As a result, his debut this season has been delayed a bit. Our original plan was to start from Paris-Nice, but we decided to delay it a bit," he said. Assuming Kruijswijk starts the season in Catalunya and Dumoulin in Basque on April 6, the two will have already missed 20 days of racing. However, team director Merijn Zeeman told Cyclingnews on Thursday that he has no concerns about the team's plans for the Tour de France and that, at this point, there is still enough time for the three Jumbo-Visma leaders to arrive in Nice on the Grande Palais in good health. He said that there is.

In response to a question about Dumoulin's health, Zeman told Cycling News, "Of course, if we are on the same stage in a month, we will have a different story.

"Right now he is sidelined, but we believe we can get him back on track and we don't have to worry about the Tour. We believe he will still be at a very high level in July. There is no need to panic. That is never the right way. We need to think straight, talk straight, and do the right thing."