A year after she took an utterly unexpected victory at Nieuwsblad, Lotte Claes has confirmed she won't be taking part in this year's Opening Weekend Classic, and instead she will be watching it on TV with decidedly mixed feelings about her non-participation.
The Fenix-Premier Tech racer told Nieuwsblad on Tuesday that she will instead be focussing on the Ardennes Classics, events that are much more suitable for the 32-year-old's characteristics as a racer.
NEW | Reigning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad champion Lotte Claes to defend her title after all, as Fenix-Premier Tech confirms her selection
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Claes, 32, indicated that she was disappointed by not being selected by Fenix for Omloop this year, but at the same time, she 'fully supported' her team's decision to send her to the Ardennes instead.
"In a way, I do find it a shame," she said. "I have fond memories of the Omloop; I'll probably never get the chance to start with number one again.
"But at the same time, I fully support the team's decision. They want to field me in the Ardennes Classics, races that are much more suited to my profile."
Claes had been set to travel to Spain for a training camp on Saturday before targeting the Trofeo Alfredo Binda (March 15) and then setting her sights on the Ardennes. However, her team had a change of heart in the days leading up to the race, instead confirming that she would indeed be defending her title.
In a message to Cyclingnews the day after this article was published, Fenix-Premier Tech confirmed that Claes would, in fact, be taking the start in Gent on Saturday.
"As the defending champion, the team’s management ultimately felt it made sense to include her, even though her strengths typically lie in the Ardennes-style terrain," the team stated.
Reflecting on that shock win
It was clear from her interview with Nieuwsblad that winning the Omloop will retain a very special moment in her career.
Her landmark victory in the 2025 edition came after the top teams shot themselves in the foot by refusing to chase the four-rider early break, which included Claes.
The upshot was that after two of the four were dropped and an agonisingly long sprint against the almost equally unknown Polish rider Aurela Nerlo, Claes took the win. For now, it remains the only victory of her career, but a hugely impressive one nonetheless.
"Physically, I was on the verge of collapse, but mentally I wouldn't give in and I had to get back on that rear wheel," Claes said after Nerlo launched a very long sprint with almost a kilometre to go.
"I've never felt my lungs and heart as much as I did in that sprint. I pulled everything I had left in my body out."
The odds on her being up for the win in Nieuwsblad were already extremely long even before she had started. Claes said she had only been told two minutes before the start by her then team, the now-defunct Arkéa-B&B, that she could go in breakaways, rather than their original idea that she play a support role for her sprinters.
Then, as the chase of the break of the day failed to materialize, it was game on for the four riders ahead, culminating in one of the most improbable - but well-deserved, given Claes' determination to get in the early move and go with it all the way to the finish - wins of the season.
"Something like this happens every few years in the women's peloton," Claes told Nieuwsblad.
"On the Berendries, it dawned on me. I kept a fast pace, and the other girls were calling for a slower pace. That's where I responded for the first time that we had to keep going because one of us was bound to win. At the finish, we still had more than three minutes left."
