Matilda Raynolds reacts to late cancellation of Lotto Belgium Tour: "That’s cycling. It’s such a beautiful, f*cked sport"

Australian cyclist Matilda Raynolds was out for dinner in Brussels when she received a text message. The Lotto Belgium Tour, a five-day race featuring some of the country’s most iconic climbs, was cancelled four days into the start. Raynolds had made the journey from Australia at her own expense to ride the Belgian race.

"Most of my races this year were in training for the Belgium Tour, my key goal. It was my best opportunity to get some results," says Raynolds, who had turned down openings with other teams to spend eight weeks in Belgium. "That’s cycling. It’s such a beautiful, f*cked sport. When it’s good, it’s so good. And when it’s bad, it’s so bad."

"Of course the riders were disappointed," says Bruno Savona, sponsorship manager for Lidl-Trek, who won the race with Elisa Longo-Borghini in 2022, in Cyclist article. "It’s not good for riders to endure this. It’s not good for anyone."

"It was a combination of the lack of sponsorship income matched with local authority funding being harder than ever to get," Peter Hodges from organizing party SweetSpot says. "It was a reduction in funding that couldn’t be bridged before we ran out of time."