“I’ve never been a rider who wins a lot — I’d like to be the new Tim Declercq”: Belgian prospect dreaming of WorldTour step-up after standout 2025 campaign

23-year-old Belgian Victor Vercouillie says he hopes to build a long-term career as a selfless support rider in the elite ranks, naming recently retired powerhouse Tim Declercq as the model he wants to follow.

Speaking in conversation with Sporza, the Team Flanders - Baloise rider insisted that he has no interest in reinventing himself as a leader and believes his natural strengths point towards a future as a trusted, hard-working domestique.

The 23-year-old explained that his professional ambitions are shaped not by personal victory, but by dependability and team value. “I have never been a rider who wins a lot — I will never be a leader. But you can still build a great career in another role.”

Vercouillie went on to name one rider in particular as his ideal blueprint: “As a super-domestique, Tim spent hours on the front of the peloton. Everyone has seen how important his work was in recent years. It is a beautiful ambition to aim to do the same as him.”

While his mindset is team-focused, Vercouillie delivered one of the most eye-catching statistical achievements of 2025, covering 2,403 kilometres in breakaways — the highest total recorded across the professional peloton. The feat turned him into one of the season’s most recognisable early-race animators.

He revealed that the breakaway tally slowly became a personal target: “When I realised I had been in the top three of the breakaway rankings for months, I really wanted to finish first.”

Reflecting on eventually topping the list, he added: “It is a title that maybe does not mean a great deal. But it does show that you performed well for an entire season.”

His presence was felt across both classics and stage-racing, making notable appearances from Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Tour of Flanders to Etoile de Besseges and the Tour of Britain.

Asked why he consistently found the right move, he said it stemmed from instinct rather than calculation: “Sometimes you feel that the right moment is coming. For example when the big names move to the front to calm the peloton. Then you know it will not take long before they raise the pace again, and that is when you have to jump.”

Despite several promising results — including a top-10 on stage one of the Tour of Denmark and coming within metres of the podium at GP Monsere — he remains realistic about where his long-term value lies. “I know I am not strong enough to follow the big hitters in the final. If I am in the early break, I do not have to push as hard on the climbs and I can get much further than if I stay in the peloton.”

Vercouillie enters his third season with Flanders-Baloise but remains hopeful that progression will come at the right moment: “If I had received the chance to go to a WorldTour team, I would not have turned it down. But that chance has not come yet and it still feels a little early because the WorldTour programme is much harder.”

His long-term objective, however, is now crystal clear — endurance work, leadership support and collective gain over personal glory.