Jarno Widar heavily criticised for dumping coach by text: "I absolutely did not find this way of communicating okay"

Lotto Dstny's youngster Jarno Widar is one of the hottest prospects in cycling today. In 2025, the Belgian will also have a new coach guiding him, although the manner of how Widar dumped his previous coach, Danny Stevens, has now come under fire. 

“I didn't see this coming. Last season there was no problem. And a few days before I received the app from Jarno, there was still nothing wrong," recalls a confused and still somewhat surprised Stevens in conversation with Het Nieuwsblad. As it turned out though, all was not well, at least not as well as it could be in the mind of Widar.

As such, Stevens got the message that his time as coach of the Belgian prospect had come to an end. "In his message, Jarno said he would stop working with me. A text that I don't think was written by Jarno. When I replied that I absolutely did not find this way of communicating okay, I received a phone call from someone from the team a little later," Stevens recalls with disappointment. "I didn't pick up because I had nothing to tell them. I only wanted clarity from Jarno, but I haven't heard from him since."

Despite his criticism over the manner of the move and the initial disappointment for losing Widar, Stevens is now keen to move on. "The first few days I was devastated. But in the meantime I've closed it off. In sports you have to be able to do that."

Het Nieuwsblad also searched for comment from Lotto Dstny on the matter, finding some from sports manager Kurt Van de Wouwer, who insisted the move was made solely by Widar himself. “Let me be clear. The decision to break with Danny comes 100 percent from Jarno himself. Contrary to what Danny apparently thinks, we did not push him," he explains. "By the way, I only heard from our trainer Olivier Delaey that Jarno will no longer be working with Danny. He is certainly not obliged from our side to work with our trainers. By the way, there are several other riders in our team who have their own trainer.”