From winning a sprint on one leg to beating Mathieu van der Poel - The Belgian Bull with a point to prove in 2027

Arnaud De Lie won nine races in his first professional season with Lotto. Three years later he outsprinted Mathieu van der Poel in Leuven to win the Renewi Tour, then won the Bretagne Classic the following weekend. The Belgian heads to Tudor Pro Cycling Team in 2027 after a season interrupted by illness, leaving the team that developed him with 35 professional victories and a Tour de France stage win still to chase.

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De Lie was born in Libramont and grew up in Lescheret in the Belgian Ardennes, where he helped on his family’s farm. The village gave him his nickname, the Bull of Lescheret. He raced for Crabbe Toitures-CC Chevigny as a junior and won the Belgian junior road title at Anzegem aged 17 in 2019. He was seventh at junior Paris-Roubaix that year. In 2020 he won the opening stage and overall at La Philippe Gilbert Juniors and took bronze in the European junior road race in Plouay.

He joined Lotto Soudal’s development team in 2021, finished third against senior opposition at the GP Vermarc and took three top tens at the under-23 Giro. He won the GP Color Code solo, and Lotto announced in July that he would turn professional the following January. He went on to win two stages and the points jersey at the Tour Alsace, finish second on a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir and win a stage and the overall at the Tour of South Bohemia. He added a stage of the Circuit des Ardennes in October. By the following spring he was racing alongside Philippe Gilbert, his childhood idol, in Gilbert’s final season.

De Lie took his first professional win aged 19 on his third start for Lotto Soudal, at the Trofeo Playa de Palma. He won the GP Jean-Pierre Monsere and Volta Limburg Classic, then took the Marcel Kint Classic, Heistse Pijl and Ronde van Limburg in nine days. His three remaining wins came on stage 3 of the Tour de Wallonie in Rochefort, at Schaal Sels and at the Egmont Cycling Race. He also finished sixth in the Belgian road race and fourth at the Bretagne Classic, his best WorldTour result of 2022.

De Lie began 2023 by winning the Clasica Comunitat Valenciana and two stages of Etoile de Besseges. He was second at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, seventh at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and sixth at Dwars door Vlaanderen. In May he won the GP du Morbihan and finished second at Tro-Bro Leon the following day. A crash in the opening sprint at the Four Days of Dunkirk fractured his left collarbone, a rib and his sternum and left him with a pneumothorax.

He returned for the Belgian championships in June and won a Tour de Wallonie stage in July. He won La Polynormande and the Tour of Leuven in August and extended his contract with Lotto through 2026. In September he beat Corbin Strong and Michael Matthews on the uphill finish at the GP de Quebec for his first WorldTour victory.

De Lie was fourth at the European road championships and won the Circuit Franco-Belge before taking his tenth win of the season at the Famenne Ardenne Classic. His cleat broke with less than 100 metres to go, leaving him to finish the winning sprint on one leg.

Lotto withdrew De Lie from the remaining spring Classics in March 2024 and subsequently announced that he had been diagnosed with Lyme disease. He won Famenne on his return in April, then won Tro-Bro Leon despite two punctures and added the Circuit de Wallonie. In June he beat Jasper Philipsen and Jordi Meeus in Zottegem to win the Belgian elite road title.

De Lie wore the tricolour on his Grand Tour debut at the Tour de France. He finished third in Turin and again at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, with three further top-five finishes and sixth in the points classification. In August he won the Tour of Denmark overall by one second from Magnus Cort. He finished fourth at the Bretagne Classic for the second time, won the final stage of the Renewi Tour in Geraardsbergen and took his seventh win of the year at Binche-Chimay-Binche.

De Lie won a stage of Etoile de Besseges in February 2025, then took a break from racing after Gent-Wevelgem to recover physically and mentally. He returned in May, finished third at the Brussels Cycling Classic in June and took five top tens on his second Tour de France. Third on stage 9 into Chateauroux was his best result, followed by fourth in Toulouse and Valence and seventh on the final stage in Paris.

After taking second at the ADAC Cyclassics, De Lie finished second to Van der Poel in Geraardsbergen to take the lead at the Renewi Tour. Van der Poel moved ahead on virtual time with intermediate bonus seconds on the final day. On the finishing straight in Leuven, De Lie came from deep in the group, passed late attacker Dries De Bondt and outsprinted Van der Poel. He won the stage and took the overall by three seconds, his first WorldTour stage-race title.

A week later he won the Bretagne Classic in Plouay ahead of Emilien Jeanniere and Olav Kooij. He won the GP de Wallonie on the Citadel of Namur, the SUPER 8 Classic and Paris-Chauny in September, then finished second at the Munsterland Giro. Six of his seven wins that year came from the final day of the Renewi Tour onwards.

An ankle injury from a fall at home interrupted De Lie’s winter preparation. He finished second on stage 3 of Tirreno-Adriatico and fourth at In Flanders Fields, the renamed Gent-Wevelgem. He won his third Famenne Ardenne Classic in May, then fell ill before his Giro d’Italia debut and abandoned during stage 4. In June he caught Riley Sheehan in the final metres to win stage 4 of the Tour de Wallonie in Eupen and finished third overall.

Another illness disrupted his preparation for the Tour de France. He started in Barcelona and withdrew during stage 3. He later said he thought he had tried to come back too quickly and trained too hard. He was tenth at the ADAC Cyclassics in August. The next day, Tudor announced his signing through 2030. It will be his first change of team since turning professional.

De Lie finished fourth in Geraardsbergen as defending champion at the Renewi Tour, but bronchitis forced him out ahead of the finale and kept him from racing in Quebec and Montreal. He returned in September and finished his road season at Paris-Tours in October with Famenne and the Tour de Wallonie his two wins for the year.

De Lie said in November that he had decided by mid-May that he needed a change of environment. When Tudor announced the move, he made settling into the team his first priority. He joins with three Tour de France stage podiums and still searching for a first Grand Tour stage win.