After serving a two-year doping ban, Toon Aerts is set to make his return to cyclocross in February after signing two-year deal with new team Deschacht-Hens-Maes.
Aerts will start the new chapter of his racing career on February 17, the day after his ban expires, at the Exact Cross Sint-Niklaas. He will then compete in the last two races of the season at the X2O Trofee Brussels and Internationale Sluitingsprijs Oostmalle.
“After the first conversations, I immediately had a good feeling about this team,” said Aerts in a statement from the team.
“A young, ambitious environment that has taken steps towards further professionalization in recent years. For me, it is the ideal environment to get back into the cyclo-cross world and to draw a definitive line under the past two years.”
Aerts, now 30, has 23 elite wins to his name and previously took wins at World Cups and competed with the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, even besting the pair at the 2016 European Championships in Pontchâteau.
The Belgian tested positive for metabolites of the breast cancer drug letrozole in an out-of-competition test on January 19 ahead of the 2022 ahead of World Championships. The substance is banned because it can be used to block the feminizing effects of anabolic steroid use in men.
Aerts was banned by the UCI in August this year, after being provisionally suspended in February 2022. The length of his suspension was cut from four years to two due to the UCI accepting that ingestion of the substance was involuntary. The Belgian unsuccessful pleaded his innocence and disputed the finding throughout the two years and fought a long battle with the UCI to try and clear his name.
His and fellow banned rider Shari Bossuyt’s management even urged riders heading to the location of their last race before testing positive - Flamanville - not to eat any local dairy products and to bring their food from Belgium. This caused the race organiser of the Flamanville UCI World Cup cyclocross race in Normandy, France to angrily bite back, denying any claims of contaminated dairy products in the region.
“Hopefully, with my track record and experience, I can help the team take another step towards podiums and victories at the highest level,” Aerts said.
“I am already looking forward to the three races that I can still complete this cyclo-cross season, but also further into the summer with a combination of road and gravel races, with the Belgian Championships gravel in Turnhout being a great challenge in my own region.”
Corné Van Kessel and Daan Soute are the current best performers at Deschacht-Hens-Maes, but the arrival of Aerts would give them another strong option should he return close to his pre-suspension form.
Aerts previously rode for top side Baloise Trek Lions but lost his place due to his ban.
