'The objective is to win a Flemish Classic' - Arnaud De Lie takes centre stage in 2024

For now, at least, Arnaud De Lie can just enjoy the novelty rather than feel overwhelmed by the ever-growing attention. Last Autumn, a week or so before his indelible, one-legged victory at the Famenne Ardenne Classic, he discovered he had even been immortalised in song by Leuven punk band the Ramones van het Groenewoud.

Borrowing rather heavily from Blondie’s ‘Denis’, the three-piece declared their undying admiration for the Lotto-Dstny rider in an enthusiastic combination of English, French and Dutch (sample lyric: “You are a bull, you sprint just like a cat/You’re super cool, you ain’t no chasse patate.”) De Lie was alerted to the homage by his mother as he made his way home after his fourth-place finish at the European Championships.

“It was a surprise for me,” De Lie laughed during Lotto-Dstny’s media day in Mechelen on Friday. “It was just after the European Championships, where we had finished second and fourth, which was good, but it wasn’t the big goal. But then I had my mother calling me on the phone to tell me there was a new song about me. I was very surprised, but they’re good guys and it was all a bit of fun.”

The song will inevitably boom from bars throughout the Flemish Ardennes this Spring, when De Lie makes his first Tour of Flanders appearance, and it may find an even wider audience in the summer, when the Belgian lines up for his Grand Tour debut at the Tour de France. He has already shown his quality by clocking up 19 wins across his first two professional seasons, but his 2024 racing schedule, heavy on WorldTour events, marks a clear step up in ambition. 

De Lie will start his season a little later than normal, at the Vuelta a Murcia and the Clasica de Almeria, before lining out at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, where he was so impressive in placing second a year ago. He is also set to ride Le Samyn and Paris-Nice before lining out at Milan-San Remo on March 16, his 22nd birthday.

His Spring’s biggest objectives, however, will come on the weekends that follow, starting with E3 Harelbeke and, perhaps, Gent-Wevelgem. De Lie will also tackle Dwars door Vlaanderen before riding his maiden Ronde and then returning to Paris-Roubaix, while participation in the Amstel Gold Race has also been pencilled in for now, albeit tentatively.

“The objective this year will be to win a Flemish Classic. I think I’m getting better and better every year, so why not this year?” De Lie said. “The goal is to be on form for the period of the Flemish Classics, and up until Amstel Gold Race, I hope.”

Although De Lie was, in keeping with his nickname, bullish about his prospects in events like Omloop and Dwars door Vlaanderen, he was more circumspect about his chances in his debut Tour of Flanders, acknowledging that the Ronde rarely smiles on neophytes.

“I don’t have a lot of experience in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but I think in the Classics like Omloop, Harelbeke, Dwars door Vlaanderen, it’s possible to make it because I think we have a team for that,” De Lie. “In the big ones, the Monuments, we will have to see. I don’t know what’s possible. I think the top 10 is possible, but the top five or the podium would be very difficult.”

De Lie was quietly adamant, mind, that his future lies in these races. Although his rapid finish has carried him to the bulk of his 19 victories to date, the youngster is not, by his reckoning a pure sprinter, preferring uphill finales like the Grand Allée at the Grand Prix de Québec.

“My first goal is the Flemish Classics,” De Lie said when asked about his sprint ambitions in 2024. “And I don’t know many guys who won every bunch sprint and then also won the Tour of Flanders, apart from Alexander Kristoff. Ok, there was Tom Boonen, too, but Tom Boonen was not really a bunch sprinter either.”

Tour de France

Even so, De Lie will look to put his rapid finish to good use on the grandest stage in the summer. His Grand Tour debut was always planned for this year, and Lotto-Dstny confirmed on Friday that they will not take up their place at the Giro d’Italia. Instead, they have opted to send De Lie to the Tour, reasoning that there is ample scope in July for bunch finishes bereft of the pure sprinters.

“There are four to six stages that should suit me. There are days for puncheurs and I also like the gravel stage to Troyes,” said De Lie, whose first experience of watching the Tour on television came as a nine-year-old, when a predecessor in the Lotto jersey bounded uphill to claim stage victory and the maillot jaune on the opening day.

“My first memories of the Tour are from when Philippe Gilbert won his stage on the Mont des Alouettes in 2011. The Tour is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, so it’s special to be able to say to your family that you’re riding.”

Immediately after the Tour, meanwhile, there is the prospect of participation in another global event. The Paris 2024 Olympics course looks ideally suited to De Lie’s characteristics, and he surely did his prospects of selection no harm with his selfless display on behalf of Wout van Aert at last year’s European Championships.

Van Aert and Remco Evenepoel are already effectively guaranteed Olympic selection, while De Lie will vie with men like Jasper Philipsen for one of the remaining berths in the four-man squad. “I think the best option is me, but that’s because I’m biased,” De Lie smiled when asked about his prospects of selection.

When De Lie sacrificed a shot at the European title to ride on Van Aert's behalf last Autumn, former national coach José De Cauwer suggested it would be “one of the last times” the youngster would be asked to do so. De Lie, mind, was diplomatic when asked about his likely role in a team with Van Aert and Evenepoel.

“The Olympic Games could be a big goal for me and also for Belgium,” he said. “But we have a lot of talent in Belgium so it’s not so easy to go there either. If I get there, I will be very happy. But if I’m not picked, I’ll understand too.”

The Ramones van het Groenewoud, one imagines, might not be as forgiving.