It’s the midweek before Belgian cycling’s much anticpated Opening Weekend, and teams are heading out onto the cobbles and hills of East Flanders to get a taste of the course ahead of the weekend’s races.
Past winners Sep Vanmarcke, Greg Van Avermaet, and Jasper Stuyven are among those riding the route with their teams, while Flandrian squad Lotto-Dstny are also hitting the roads with Victor Campenaerts and Arnaud De Lie.
Campenaerts, former World Hour Record holder, is a recent convert to the cobbles, having last year targeted the spring Classics for the first time. He has a new bike with a Classified rear hub, an enormous 1x front chainring, extremely narrow bars, turned-in hoods, and wide tyres. Anything that he sees as beneficial to performance is on the table, regardless of whether it’ll get some funny looks in the bunch.
The team’s young sprinter De Lie, meanwhile, is as much of a team leader even though he will be making his Omloop Het Nieuwsblad debut this weekend.
The 20-year-old enjoyed a stunning neo-pro season in 2022 with nine wins and he already has three in 2023, including two stages at the Etoile de Bessèges.
Now several fellow pros are already tipping him as a contender for Saturday’s race.
“For this edition, I see Arnaud De Lie as a favourite,” AG2R Citroën’s Oliver Naesen told Het Nieuwsblad (opens in new tab) this week. “He’s special – I’ve already seen him do incredible things and yet he’s very down to earth.”
Greg Van Avermaet also named the young Walloon among a shortlist of favourites in the absence of Classics superstars Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, while Vanmarcke said he can’t see who will be able to drop De Lie.
“If Lotto want to, they can control everything for De Lie and then I want to see who can beat him,” Vanmarcke asked.
“In Bessèges he rode over longer climbs than there are at Omloop with ease. I don’t see who is going to ride him off in a 200km race.”
Lotto-Dstny team manager Kurt Van De Wouwer told the Belgian paper (opens in new tab) that De Lie’s rise has been quicker than expected, adding that the rising star hasn’t felt the pressure on the way up, despite his growing reputation.
A sign of how down to earth the farmer’s son from the Ardennes is? On Wednesday he caught a train to Oudenaarde to join the team for their first recon ride of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad course.
De Lie has already racked up 22 wins since making the step up from Lotto’s U23 development squad to the WorldTour ranks last year. He…
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