Over the last few years Victor Campenaerts abandoned his ambitions in the time-trials as a new generation including Filippo Ganna, Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert and many more emerged to raise the bar higher than ever. With Lotto Soudal he keeps the new style of racing he adopted at Qhubeka, and has been a constant in the TV screens in all kinds of races.
"I look a lot into marginal gains, and the guys are eager to learn from me. We have a good group of riders – this is more a group of friends than just cyclists," he says of his return to Lotto Soudal. "We are all having a really good time. I’m 30 years old now and all these really big talents coming from the youth categories are eager to learn what I have to teach. For me personally, it’s quite an exceptional feeling that I play a very small part in this success. It makes me feel valuable."
On an interview with Rouleur, the Belgian has explained what has changed since he left the team, in comparison to the environment he has found this season upon his return, where he remains one of the faces of the squad: "That's quite a difficult question because when I was on the team, 2018-2019, I was a time trial specialist, and the atmosphere didn’t matter for my performance – I was an individual rider in a team sport. That's totally different now, I'm much more part of the team. It's hard to imagine how I have been a professional for eight years only focusing on time trials because it's so much more fun right now."
"It was forced, a bit [his separation with time-trialing]. I was at quite a high level in time trialing for some years, especially 2018-2019, but then in 2020, Ganna was there, and then van Aert and Evenepoel, and Pogacar and Roglic also improved their time trial, and I suddenly felt that I had no chance of even coming close to winning a World Tour time trial. It was a little bit demoralizing," he added.
"I felt that my performance level was still improving. But the others took off and I was not able to keep up with them. So, I tried to do something new, and raced aggressively." In 2021 he switched off from time-trial racing and more onto road races and has found a new spark. Having won a stage at the Giro d'Italia last year, Campenaerts was a leading figure in plenty races throughout the year, mostly classics and hilly stages. This year he's started his season off at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad where he finished fifth after two punctures and a crash, and later on went to finish sixth in Le Samyn where he tried to take off solo for the win several times. He is set to race Strade Bianche today, however he'll be absent of Tirreno-Adriatico to recover from his injuries of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad before switching his attention to the remainder of the spring classics.
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