Belgium’s road to Olympic gold: cycling
At the last Olympics in Tokyo, Belgium had its most successful Games since 1948, with a total of seven medals. This year's Paris Olympics could be even better, with plenty of Belgian candidates in the running for a medal. Today, Belga English looks at road and track cycling.
Belgium is an absolute powerhouse in cycling and that is reflected in the size of its Olympic delegation. The country is sending 21 riders to Paris, the highest number in its history.
The road cycling team is also hoping to do better in terms of performance than in Tokyo, where they won one medal, thanks to Wout Van Aert. Van Aert would normally again be one of the favourites in both the road race and the time trial, but he has had a complicated season, marked by a serious crash in March during the Dwars door Vlaanderen in Flanders. It remains to be seen if he can achieve his top shape in time for the Olympics.
"He can play a very important role and may even be a medal contender"
However, Belgium has another strong leader in Remco Evenepoel, the current road race and time trial world champion. Evenepoel showed his class at the Tour de France which ended less than a week ago, finishing third in the general qualification on his debut and winning a time trial stage.
At a press conference, Belgium's national coach, Sven Vanthourenhout, praised Evenepoel’s achievement and said “he clearly is ready to compete for medals in both disciplines at the Games”.
He also pointed out that Van Aert made great progress at the Tour and that Jasper Stuyven, former winner of Milan-San Remo, impressed him as well in France. “He is perhaps at the best level of his career. He can play a very important role and may even be a medal contender.”
Clear leader
Belgium's women’s team, on the other hand, has one clear leader: Lotte Kopecky, the reigning world champion. Kopecky is one of the favourites for gold in the road race. She will, however, face a very strong team from the Netherlands – with the serial winners Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes and Marianne Vos. Other important contenders are Poland's Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Italian Elisa Longo Borghini.
The men’s road race is 273km with 2,800m of climbing, the women’s 158km with 1,700m of altitude gain. Both start and end at the Trocadero area in Paris and feature steep, punchy climbs – including the important Butte Montmartre.
The flat time trial route, which favours the pure time triallists, is 32.4km long for both the male and female riders. This is the first time in Olympic history that they will race the same time trial course over the same distance.
The time trials take place on the same day, 27 July. The road races are organised the following weekend, with the men’s race on 3 August and the women’s on 4 August.
Four medal chances
The day after the road cycling events end, on 5 August, the track cycling competition kicks off. It runs until 11 August and takes place at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome east of Versailles.
National coach Kenny De Ketele believes the Belgian team has four medal chances in the track cycling. He sees good opportunities in the omnium for Kopecky and Fabio Van Den Bossche, in the men's Madison race - with, probably, Robbe Ghys and Lindsay De Vylder- and in the keirin event with Nicky Degrendele. “They are our spearheads,” he said at a press conference.
Remco Evenepoel celebrates on the podium in the white jersey for best young rider during the final podium ceremony of the 2024 Tour de France, 21 July © BELGA PHOTO LUCA BETTINI