Arnaud De Lie will not ride the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix after the young Belgian sprinter and his Lotto-Dstny team opted to end his spring campaign after a series of illnesses, crashes and frustration.
The 22-year-old is considered one of the Classics stars of the future and won GP de Québec in 2023 but will now sit out the biggest Classics of the spring and focus on recovering physically and mentally after a bruising few weeks.
A month ago, De Lie went toe-to-toe with Wout van Aert at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad despite being sick during an altitude training camp. However, he then crashed hard at Le Samyn in early March and was forced to pull out of Paris-Nice due to his injuries.
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He crashed again at the GP de Denain and then struggled with the aggressive racing at the E3 Saxo Classic and Gent-Wevelgem. That led to a meeting with Lotto-Dstny team manager Stéphane Heulot and the performance staff and the decision to pull the plug on his spring.
“The team's management and performance department have decided together with De Lie that he will not start in the upcoming Classics,” the Belgian team announced, forcing them to create a new strategy for the biggest cobbled Classics of the spring.
“He will take some time to recover and build up to the second part of the season. The date of his return will soon be definitively determined.”
Lotto-Dstny hope that Victor Campenaerts, Jasper De Buyst, Alec Segaert and Brent Van Moer can perform in the cobbled Classics but the team lacks a sprint option and a natural team leader.
The Belgian ProTeam have scored a haul of UCI ranking points to ensure they will again have wildcard invitations to the biggest 2025 races and likely a place back in the WorldTour from 2026. A number of their young riders have also signed contract extensions, including UAE Tour winner Lennert Van Eetvelt and Vuelta a Andalucia winner Maxim Van Gils. However, on Tuesday it emerged that Dstny has still to confirm if it will renew its title sponsorship for 2035.
It is unclear when De Lie will race again. The 'sprinter's Classic' of Scheldeprijs on Wednesday, April 3 is an option but De Lie may take a longer break and start training for other goals later in the season, including a possible Tour de France debut.
"Arnaud needs a complete reset," Heulot told Het Nieuwsblad recently. "It makes no sense to let him ride the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix in this condition.
"Arnaud now needs to rest and lay the foundation for the rest of the season. This was the wisest decision we could make.
"Letting him start in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix would not have been good for anyone. Not for him, not for the team. This was the only logical decision, his base was just not wide enough.
"We are not talking about the Tour de France yet, we are just working towards his next race. Arnaud must now first complete a good training block to be physically and mentally back at the start of his next races. Of course, he is disappointed, that goes without saying. But he is strong enough to get over this."
