Spring over for Arnaud De Lie who continues to struggle with bad form?
Cycling
The Lotto Cycling Team has managed to score a big amount of points over the past seasons in order to be able to secure it's return to the World Tour - unless something goes horribly wrong - however their leader Arnaud De Lie has not been having a good spring and racing in Belgium. And now it has come to an end, as he forfeits the Tour of Flanders amidst bad form.
De Lie already encountered issues last year where he was diagnosed with Lime's disease, but managed to bounce back in the summer to win the national championships, queen stage at the Renewi Tour, win the Tour of Denmark and Binche - Chimay - Binche. Now in 2025 he faces a new challenge after a challenging spring where he won a stage at the Etoile de Bessèges, but that was a week after his expected season debut.
Throughout the spring he finished in the Top10 of the GP de Denain but he has little else to show for in the one-day races. A crash took him out of contention at the Classic Brugge-De Panne and this Sunday at Gent Wevelgem he simply did not have the legs and ended up abandoning the race. Unfortunately for the Belgian Pro Team, he will now also skip the last two cobbled classics that were in his program when it comes to Belgium.
The team has announced that he will skip Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders: "Arnaud de Lie unfortunately withdrew early from Gent-Wevelgem today. He will take some time in the coming days for a reset and will therefore not start in Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday and the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. We hope he returns to his old self soon, wish him lots of courage, and look forward to having him back with us soon".
Paris-Roubaix was left out of the statement as the team continue to hope he manages to improve his form until then, but the signs are not looking good for the 23-year old.
Update on @Arnaud_De_Lie pic.twitter.com/7RZ5otEdms
— Lotto Cycling Team (@lottocycling_) March 30, 2025
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- Jorgenson turns 26 this year, he won't get much bettervappaxbipmv02-04-2025
- i completely agree. wouter has been through a meat grinder. he’s such a class act, a man of such character that he would never complain or make excuses, that’s why it’s so infuriating to hear him spoken about as if he was failing, choking, or in any way not fulfilling what’s expected of him. i get it, he’s a PRO, so part of what he gets paid for is to be a target for anyone with an opinion. fair enough. MY opinion is that he needs TIME to overcome a pile of injuries. i hope he gets there, because he deserves a pile of wins.OCexile02-04-2025
- I just went through the list of events in his recent riding history listed in another article (so not including his very expensive legal affair and any potential trouble at home) and it’s a half miracle he’s still riding at all. He's outfallen Roglič for sure, who always came away RELATIVELY unharmed.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- ugh. slice and dice this any way you like. if you’re one of the belgians TRYING to believe wout is going to be in the fight at de ronde and roubaix, this is an ice cold dose of reality. my opinion is that nobody — ESPECIALLY his own team — should have been fanning any expectations of wout at this point after what he’s endured.OCexile02-04-2025
- I guess when you’re high, you don’t (need to) focus on anything ;-)Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- True but things also change, Primoz will get older, Remco crashes, MJ isn’t peaking yet and people can improve their weaknesses faster than others improve their strengths, cf MVDP climbing, JV TTing.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Sorry, yeah doesn’t look great but it seems all the recent context gets completely ignored in order to make a big story out of this. Honestly, did anyone at this point really expect Wout to suddenly have recovered all his missing form? Respect to Powless but he’s no nobody, his 2022-2023 presaged something like this. Yes they messed up but it also nearly worked, impossible to know how good your opponent is going to be in such a situation unkess it’s an in form Pog or MVDP. I’d not see this as a disaster but a really bad call, there are positives, they distanced a very strong 2nd group (Mads might be saving himself though) and Wout was very close to a place he’s not heen in a long time. I’d call that progress. Only a few meters would have led to completely different headlines. Why make everything so boack and white? Wout obviously understands and it is in part everyone putting all that pressure on him that led to him making a bad call. That said, had he let his mates go for the win (no guarantee either) héd have received different criticism.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Pogi is just had 9 days of racing.
James2631802-04-2025 - I’d advise doing brain scans during max efforts, you never know, he may be having micro blackouts without realising it at the time and with a crash you tend not to remember it after either. Like when you nod off a split second while driving, or realise you can’t remember any details from the last few km.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- I can't believe what I just saw. Reminds me of Ian Stannard beating 3 Quickstep riders in Omloop. Not sure what's going on with Wout. Maybe just needs more time, but he has not looked great since that Vuelta crash.Pedalmasher02-04-2025