"He should never have started in Paris-Nice" - Lotto Dstny DS admits mistakes with Arnaud De Lie; Tour de France still uncertain

Arnaud De Lie had a stunning 2023 season but now faces a big obstacle in his career. After getting injured at Le Samyn, he had a tough month of March and ultimately was diagnosed with Lyme's disease. The Belgian is now returning to racing but the team is putting no pressure on him to perform or race the Tour de France as initially planned.

“It is difficult to say that he will compete anonymously in his first races. He will always be looked at. We don't expect him to be great there. The race serves to get back on track in competition. He will then ride the GP du Morbihan, Tro Bro Léon and the Circuit de Wallonie," team DS Nikolas Maes shared with Het Laatste Nieuws. "We then determine a new program, based on how he felt in those races. We hope that Arnaud will be racing at a high level again in a month's time. It is important that he feels good again and feels good on the bike. It looks like he left for some good results.”

The recently-turned 22-year old is the absolute leader of the Belgian team, who is trying to ascend to World Tour level, and so naturally there is a lot of pressure on his shoulders after he burst out of the scene in recent years in spectacular fashion. But his inexperience has led to comunication, Lotto Dstny's DS says: “The problem with Arnaud is that he takes everything lightly. Because of course the rider has to explain it himself. We have now understood: if Arnaud says he is not feeling 100 percent, we have to shut him down."

"Then it means that he is really not good. From this perspective, he should never have started in Paris-Nice," Maes understands. "Because he did not immediately indicate that there was a problem, he left anyway. Transparency and communication to the staff and to the performance cell are what Arnaud needs to improve at, so that we can help him optimally. It can happen that not everything is okay or that he doesn't feel well at times. If he communicates more openly about this, we can also respond more proactively.”

Now, De Lie returns to racing at the Famenne Ardenne Classic this Sunday where he will be an outsider for the result. Ideally, a quick return to form; then the Tour de Suisse, national championships and Tour de France in the summer. However the team is not looking to pressure him back into the top ranks without him being ready.

“There is no pressure and no stress. To put it bluntly: whether he wins a race this year or not doesn't matter to us. What matters to us is that he gets going again. We also leave the answer to the question of whether he will ride the Tour open. He is in the pre-selection and we will keep it that way. It is not that he has to go to the Tour or that we are removing the Tour from his program," he concluded.