"I’m getting stronger every race" - Arnaud De Lie happy with consistency throughout spring campaign

In his second year as a pro Arnaud De Lie has been focusing on consistency and he's been showing it throughout his spring. At a high level since January, the Belgian put on a strong performance at this week's Brabantse Pijl where he raced to 7th place in the hilly race.

“With Andreas at the front, we created a good situation but he didn’t feel strong enough at the end to go for victory. We still tried to force something but the two leaders were impressively strong and stayed away eventually," De Lie shared in a post-race interview. "I felt strong but missed just that bit to go for victory, I need to be honest with that. Maybe a seventh place is not what we came for, I think we can speak of another strong team performance.”

Lotto Soudal worked in the final kilometers in hopes of bringing the front riders back, but it wasn't to be for a big difference. An uphill finish, De Lie was outsprinted by a few riders, but his performance in what is a very tough classic with multiple climbs was promising. He who has finished second at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, sixth at Dwars door Vlaanderen and seventh at Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne among other results continues a long spring campaign in which he's scored many UCI points and tested himself against some of the best int he world.

“It is nice to see that I’m still feeling strong at the end of this first block of racing. I’m getting stronger every race. But now I’m going to rest up a bit before preparing the next goals”, the Belgian concluded. After 20 race days, most outside of stage-racing, the 21-year old takes some rest. He should return to competition soon at Eschborn-Frankfurt, however with no Grand Tour in the plans this year he will likely continue to race throughout the year without big breaks.