Onions, feet, and grand tour illness: Thomas De Gendt reveals how riders stay healthy

2 time Tour de France stage winner Thomas De Gendt retired at the end of 2024 after 16 years in the peloton. His last grand tour was the Vuelta a Espana in September, the race which the Belgian won the mountains classification back in 2018.

Speaking to the magazine Bahamontes about his time racing in the Vuelta, De Gendt revealed some odd details of other riders in the peloton. After the tenth stage, which was won by his countryman Wout van Aert, De Gendt told Bahamontes, “I had to let go from the start, just like most of my teammates, including Lennert Van Eetvelt. So we had to work hard to bring him back."

"We only managed that after eighty kilometres and even then we had to drive very hard to keep Lennert there. Fortunately, we were able to limit the damage to our leader."

After Van Eetvelt became ill, De Gendt revealed that the Lotto Dstny rider tried some very unique techniques to recover, before he eventually had to abandon the race, "At the hotel, our chef told me he had read that according to Chinese medicine, the substances an onion releases can slow down infections and inflammation.

“The most efficient place to get those substances into your bloodstream would be the soles of your feet."

"So Victor Campenaerts, Lennert and three other teammates went to get onions, cut them into pieces and tied them around their feet with cling film. They put their socks on top of that and went to sleep."

In a sport where scientific revolutions are constantly changing the way riders train, race and recover, this is not how most fans imagine that professional riders are recovering between stages.