Fabio Jakobsen is reportedly close to joining Visma–Lease a Bike in an immediate transfer after ending his contract with Picnic–PostNL. Cyclingflash, carrying reporting by Wielerflits journalist Raymond Kerckhoffs, says the two sides are working toward an agreement that could put Jakobsen in Visma colours before the end of August. Neither team has announced the signing. Until one does, this is an advanced transfer report, not a completed deal.
That distinction matters. So does the timing. Three weeks ago Jakobsen said he did not expect Picnic to renew his expiring contract, but retirement was not an option. Now one of the most exacting performance teams in cycling appears ready to stake a roster place on the part the results cannot show: that the body which once made him one of the fastest men alive can still be rebuilt.
What has been reported
The report says Jakobsen and Picnic–PostNL agreed to terminate his contract on 31 July, five months before its scheduled end. Visma had already considered him while looking for a sprinter for flatter races in 2027. Once he became available early, the team discussed bringing the move forward and giving him a reduced race programme before this season is over.
Visma were not alone. EF Education–EasyPost and Alpecin–Premier Tech also showed serious interest, according to the same report. The Visma connection was more personal. Jakobsen lives near the team’s head of performance, Mathieu Heijboer, and the two have trained together in the region over the years. Sources inside Visma told Wielerflits that the decision was considered carefully: the team believes Jakobsen can recover physically, respond to a different training method and return to the top level.
No contract length, salary or first race has been made public. There is no team statement and no rider announcement. Those blanks should stay blank.
The problem was not his sprint
Jakobsen’s decline looked simple from the outside. He joined the team then known as DSM–Firmenich PostNL in 2024 as a proven Grand Tour winner and won once, at the Tour of Turkey that April. He has not won since. The fast man who had built a career on surviving the day and detonating in the final 200 metres began losing contact long before the sprint existed.
The medical explanation arrived in 2025: restricted blood flow in the iliac arteries of both legs. Jakobsen underwent major surgery through the abdomen that April. The operation restored the blood pressure in his legs, but it did not return two seasons of lost strength overnight. He later admitted that he had underestimated how far the procedure would set him back. Then, just after returning to competition, he crashed at the Renewi Tour and broke his collarbone in five places. Another operation. Another rehabilitation. Another winter spent trying to recover what professional cycling had already taken.
In July, Jakobsen explained the gap with brutal clarity. He could reproduce a sprint in training. The problem was reaching it after four or five hours of hard racing. That is the whole job. A pure sprinter is not paid for fresh-legged power in a laboratory; he is paid to preserve it through crosswinds, climbs, crashes and two hundred kilometres of elbows, then use it while everyone else is drowning.
The sprint is still there. The question is whether his body can carry it to the final 200 metres.
Visma are not buying a result sheet; they are betting on the road back
Do not reduce him to the crash
Every Jakobsen story eventually returns to Katowice. In August 2020, Dylan Groenewegen forced him into the barriers at the Tour de Pologne, leaving Jakobsen with catastrophic facial injuries and in an induced coma. The UCI disqualified Groenewegen and later suspended him for nine months. Jakobsen lived, endured repeated surgery and came back.
But the crash is not the only proof of his level, nor should survival become a sentence requiring him to perform miracles forever. After Katowice he won three stages and the points classification at the 2021 Vuelta a España. He won a Tour de France stage and the European road title in 2022. Across his career he has taken five Vuelta stages, the Tour stage, two Scheldeprijs victories and more than forty professional wins. The comeback already happened. This transfer is about whether he can make another one for an entirely different injury.
Why Visma would take the bet
The cold sporting case starts with age. Jakobsen turns 30 on 31 August. That is not young in a market obsessed with teenagers, but it is not old for a sprinter. His top speed has a proven WorldTour history, his medical follow-up has shown normal blood pressure in both legs, and the acquisition cost is likely lower than it was when Picnic signed him at his peak. Visma do not need to pretend the last two years were good. They need to decide whether the underlying asset is recoverable.
They can also give him something a desperate sprinter rarely receives: time without pretending time is free. A smaller programme would let Jakobsen rebuild race durability away from the sport’s largest spotlights. Different training might find gains. Familiar roads and a Dutch support structure might remove noise. None of that guarantees a single win, but it turns hope into a testable plan.
For Visma, the risk is a roster place. For Jakobsen, it is heavier. A move gives him another contract but no protection from the stopwatch. Every flat finish will ask whether the old speed survived, and every early exit will be entered into the public ledger as evidence that it did not. What does belief weigh when a rider still has to prove it at seventy kilometres an hour?
What is confirmed, and what comes next
As of 3 August, the safe version is narrow. Jakobsen said in July that he expected to leave Picnic–PostNL and wanted to continue racing. Cyclingflash/Wielerflits now reports that his Picnic contract ended on 31 July and that an immediate Visma agreement is close. The transfer has not been announced by Jakobsen, Picnic or Visma.
If it lands, this will not be a sentimental homecoming. It will be a hard bargain between a team that believes its system can recover elite speed and a rider asking for enough road to prove his career is not over. Jakobsen said he wants at least five more seasons. Visma may be about to give him the first one. After everything his body has absorbed, the rest still has to be earned.
Sources
- Cyclingflash / Wielerflits — Jakobsen reportedly set for an immediate move to Visma
- Wielerflits — Jakobsen on his recovery, expiring contract and refusal to retire
- Cyclingnews — Jakobsen explains the double iliac-artery operation and 2026 comeback
- Cycling Weekly — Jakobsen’s 2025 collarbone fracture and Picnic career record
- UCI — statement on the 2020 Tour de Pologne crash
- L’Equipe — Fabio Jakobsen career profile and results
Related reading
CyclingFreePress is a cycling news digest. This article summarises transfer reporting from Cyclingflash/Wielerflits and publicly reported medical and career information. The Visma move had not been announced by the rider or either team at the time of writing; transfer situations can change quickly. This article should be updated when an official statement is issued.