While the rest of
Team Visma | Lease a Bike are gathered at
their high-altitude training camp in Tignes, one key
Tour de France selection
is notably absent:
Tiesj Benoot. The 31-year-old Belgian is taking a different
approach in 2025, racing the Tour de Suisse and skipping the Tignes camp for
now. It’s a calculated choice, one rooted in both performance science, but
perhaps more so in personal balance.
“I've done the classics – Sierra Nevada – Dauphiné – Tignes
and then the Tour – three years in a row now, so I wanted something different,”
Benoot told In de Leiderstrui. That request was granted, and while his
teammates climbed the Alps or took recovery blocks after the Giro or Dauphiné,
Benoot raced on Swiss roads, his eyes still firmly on July.
Benoot isn’t taking a shortcut. His foundation was built
with a brutal four-week altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, matching the volume of
riders like Otto Vergaerde and Lidl-Trek’s Jasper Stuyven. But unlike his
teammates now at Tignes, Benoot is leaning into variation. “I have the feeling
that a new stimulus every now and then is also just good,” he said. “Variation
is also important in a career every now and then, both physically and
mentally.”
The mental angle matters. As a father of two young children,
Benoot opted to combine elite training with family time, even bringing his
family to Spain for the final week of Sierra Nevada. He spoke candidly about
the decision: “I was able to train very well on the Sierra Nevada and my family
also came over for the fourth week, so that was great.”
This is also important for Benoot’s teammate Jonas
Vingegaard, who regularly adapts his training schedule and racing program in
order to spend as little time away from his family as possible.
His current Tour de Suisse programme isn’t just for race
rhythm; it fills a practical gap. “Because you go a bit longer (at altitude),
you can also build up more slowly,” he explained. “And I trained a bit harder
in the fourth week, because I realized that I don't have that training period
after the Tour of Switzerland anymore. Which I would normally have after the
Dauphiné.”
For Benoot, the shift isn’t guesswork. It’s rooted in past
experience. “I followed the same approach in 2019 and I rode a pretty good
Tour, so I believe in it.”
Benoot has ridden every Tour since 2017
Benoot has almost solely ridden the classics in the spring,
and then the Tour throughout his career. He has never ridden the Giro, and only
once the Vuelta, all the way back in 2018. Along the way he has won races like
Strade Bianche, and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, but never a Tour stage.
He’s also keeping a realistic eye on the broader Tour
picture. Watching Visma’s Dauphiné squad from afar, he was both impressed and
reflective, especially considering the level of Tadej Pogacar. “It was
impressive again, how fast they ride,” he said of the time trial. But he
acknowledged recent setbacks: “We would have liked to see it differently in the
last two days. On the other hand, the Tour is still relatively far away and we
just have to keep doing what we are doing.”
Benoot will return to Belgium after the Tour de Suisse,
racing the national championships instead of seeking more altitude. It’s
another deviation from the typical Tour prep playbook, but one that reflects a
more mature understanding of what he needs. “If you want to be good one week
earlier, you also have to start training again one week earlier,” he reasoned.
“Everything is then a bit more glued together.”