The experienced 31 years old Belgian rider Oliver Naesen did not have an easy 2022 season. Plagued by illness during the key moments of his season, the best result was 4th place in Omloop het Nieuwsblad. A bit short for what we are used to seeing him doing, specially at a team like AG2R Citroën, where he is one of the main riders for the classics races.
He did start well his first classics in Belgium, but then in Paris-Nice he got sick and everything turned to worst, ”That was dramatic, especially because I peaked at the races after Paris-Nice. I then spent 10 days in my bed and a lot of great races passed me by. And when you fall behind physically in the ear year, you're basically already lost”, stated Naesen in an interview for Sporza.
Having a flu and coronavirus infections are for sure unfortunate circumstances where Naesen did not have control of. Still, Naesen puts some blames also on the AG2R medical staff, has according to him some procedures could have been better done.
"Sick riders lingered too long in the group, which made the whole team sick. Those are things I didn't really like myself. My complaints about that were definitely listened to. So the medical staff changed. We are also constantly connected with each other. They know how much I weigh when I get out of bed, and they know how many hours I've cycled. If I do their schedules to perfection, they can't be mad", he stated, clearly blaming his unfortunate sickness to his less successful season.
Past forward to 2023, the Belgian is on his last year contract with the AG2R Citroën team, a team that he is going to represent for the 7th consecutive season. Still, there are no guarantees about what will be his future after this season, “I would lie that it doesn't concern me, It's my profession and places are expensive. So it's really of need”, said Naesen.
So in order to secure a good contract, Naesen will have to level up his results in comparison to his last season. The Belgian does not have any particular win objective, he wants to regain his well known consistency from the last years.
"To ride consistently at the front, I used to ride top 10 or top 5 more often. Then people asked me where was the cherry on the cake. But actually that cherry was just my consistency", said the former Belgian National road champion.
He concluded that mainly because of Wout Van Aert and Mathieu Van der Poel who are currently the big favourites to the most races that Naesen aims, "In the years before those, there was a flat top, which I did belong to. Everyone could win every race from each other. Now there are two riders who stand out above them, so others have to rely more on the circumstances of the day", he concluded.
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