Victor Campenaerts keen to do all he can to help Arnaud De Lie next spring: "These are – in pencil – the first major goals"

It's fair to say that Lotto Dstny duo Victor Campenaerts and Arnaud De Lie are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their career. As such, Campenaerts is keen to help his younger compatriot.

“Unlike last year, I am already riding a race for the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. I'm going to do the Ruta del Sol," Campenaerts reveals in conversation Het Nieuwsblad. "Then the Omloop and then Paris-Nice or the Tirreno Adriatico, depending on which race offers the best chances for Arnaud. Then the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders. These are – in pencil – the first major goals.”

After winning the most combative rider award at the 2023 Tour de France, Campenaerts has developed into something of a breakaway specialist in recent years. In 2024 however, the Belgian is keen to return to his time-trialing roots. “I'm going to pay a little more attention to the time trial. I am certainly not going to specialize in it again like I used to, but I do want to get back on that time trial bike once or twice a week.”

“At the end of this year I did that a little more to ride a classification in the Tour of Luxembourg. I had an off day in the queen stage, but won the time trial, ahead of Brandon McNulty who was fourth at the World Championship," he recalls. "That gave me morale to start working on it more. It could come in handy to try to defend a classification in the Tour of Belgium or the Benelux Tour."