Strange however true. While some riders are greatest remembered for a way they received a race, for others, it is their response to the triumph – the celebration and the rapid aftermath – that lingers longest in followers’ collective reminiscence. Such was certainly the case for Victor Campenaerts, whose victory final yr on stage 18 of the Tour de France towards fellow breakaways Michał Kwiatkowski and Mattéo Vercher was extensively remembered not a lot for him outsprinting them, however for his large outpouring of feelings and explanations that adopted.
As the Belgian stated on the time, the interval on the 2024 Classics had been very robust for him, along with his then staff, Lotto-Dstny, failing to debate a promised contract extension at the same time as he launched into a nine-week altitude coaching camp in Spain. It was an exceptionally lengthy camp, however as Campenaerts recounted, “My girlfriend” – whom he known as, in tears, on the cellphone from the stage 18 end line – “was there and he or she supported me each day, whereas pregnant, as I used to be struggling to even fulfil my coaching program. I doubted I had a future in biking at the same time as I used to be about to develop into a father,” he added, explaining why her assist had been so vital.
A primary Tour de France stage victory beneath these circumstances should really feel like an enormous emotional landmark and likewise a closure of a key profession chapter, however it additionally begs the query: what occurs subsequent? Do you even wish to attempt to repeat that form of success?
Fast ahead six months and to Campenaerts’ first coaching camp with Visma-Lease a Bike, his new staff, and it is maybe no shock that the 33-year-old, who’s famously meticulous, already has the following instalment of his skilled street map deliberate out. But it would not contain successful extra Tour phases – at the least for him.
“I’m very pleased about final yr as a result of I would not say I’m a median rider, however I’m not the following Remco [Evenepoel] or Jonas [Vingegaard] or Tadej [Pogačar], Campenaerts defined to Cyclingnews through the Visma coaching camp. “I’m only a good bike owner.
“So to win a stage within the Tour when Tadej obtained what, six or seven phases, and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) obtained one other three or 4 – you realize, not a lot is left.
“It’s all the time been extraordinarily tough to win a Tour stage, extraordinarily prestigious too, in order that was excellent timing for me as a result of I additionally actually have the ambition to be 100% domestique, too, and now I can shut this different chapter” – of combating for particular person wins – “in one of the best ways potential.
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“I’ve obtained a Tour stage win, a Giro stage win, I’ve damaged the Hour Record, and I’ve been a a number of European Champion, and I’ve been on the rostrum of a World Championships as nicely.
“But that is a chapter that is closed, and now I’ve obtained a really totally different aim forward of me: I wish to be on the Champs Elysées of the successful Tour de France staff.”
Changing course on the Tour
As Campenaerts sees it, then, he is now achieved all the things he can do on a person stage. Hence his signing for Visma, the place he’s totally devoted to their Grand Tour and stage racing trigger, particularly that of Jonas Vingegaard.
Campenaerts has already performed an vital function in Paris-Nice this week, particularly – however not completely – within the staff time trial.
“I’m very nervous. I’ve by no means been as nervous for a TTT as I’m for at present’s. It might be crucial,” he instructed Sporza earlier than the staff race towards the clock. But afterwards, with Visma-Lease a Bike celebrating an vital victory by an unexpectedly giant margin and placing final yr’s winner Matteo Jorgenson into the lead, the Belgian was in a really totally different way of thinking. And not simply because it was his first ever win in a 12-year-career in a TTT.
“Winning collectively is the motto,” he instructed Het Laatste Nieuws afterwards. “And how will you do this extra as a staff than in a staff time trial? With seven riders and all the workers round us, such an expertise… It is my fifth day of racing for the staff, however this was actually the definition of successful collectively.”
After Paris-Nice, Campenaerts is participating within the bulk of the Classics, however he’ll be reunited with Vingegaard on the Dauphine and, it appears very probably, the Tour. But his plan for the summer season is not going to be to repeat the identical radical nine-week altitude camp that so dramatically marked his build-up to July final yr.
“Not actually, the staff has its personal very clear plan, it is nothing new beneath the solar, however it begins after the Classics with a protracted block in Sierra Nevada, going to the Dauphiné, adopted by extra altitude work in Tignes after which doing the Tour. That’s a mix which has proved profitable on a number of events,” he defined to Cyclingnews.
“Also, in my Spring Classics and season for the start of the yr, I’ll do extra racing centered on climbing.” Apart from Paris-Nice, then, he’ll even be racing in Itzulia, Amstel Gold and Liège, all hilly occasions which, in a profession stretching again to 2014, the 33-year-old has solely ever raced as soon as earlier than. All of it, in any case, is “extra focussed in direction of the Tour.”
Yet if Campenaerts is transferring in a brand new course by working as a stage racing domestique, in some methods on Visma-Lease a Bike, he is turned full circle. The Dutch squad had been his first WorldTour staff again in 2016 and 2017, in spite of everything, however as he says, the staff has moved on notably within the final 10 years.
“Rider-wise, solely Wilco Kelderman and Steven Kruijswijk are nonetheless right here from that point,” Campenaerts factors out. “I do know fairly just a few workers members, nonetheless, however it’s completely totally different in the best way that after I was there, I used to be using for private success in time trials.
“But that was additionally why I left the staff, as a result of I had a transparent ambition for private success, and that did not slot in with the staff’s targets with Stevie [Kruijswijk] and Primož [Roglič].
“We by no means had a struggle about it, that is simply the way it was. But now I’m very eager to be a 100% domestique, so this chapter with Visma could be very totally different from the final one.”
It’s additionally very totally different, he agrees, to his time at Lotto, the place they’d primarily sprinting, breakaway and Classics aims. The period of GC targets was both largely earlier than his time, with Australian Cadel Evans or – when Lotto did sometimes go for stage racing success with riders like Lennert van Eetvelt or earlier than him, Tim Wellens – Campenaerts principally didn’t kind a part of the lineup.
“When they’d these targets, I used to be using for my private success and from 2018 to 2024, I achieved good issues. I’m fairly glad with them and I can inform my son, when he grows up, all about them. But I additionally wish to inform my son – I used to be on the Champs Elysées with Jonas within the yellow jersey.”
Campenaerts has not utterly sacrificed all his private targets, although. As he explains, he feels very formidable about getting a spot within the Tour – “and we’re a giant staff, numerous folks wish to be in there, so even that is a giant struggle” – he does add, “however after I can cross the road in first place, I’ll take that likelihood.”
However, his priorities are what have modified utterly at Visma, with that Tour de France participation being the one which issues by far probably the most.
“Now I’m simply fascinated about pulling on the entrance within the Tour de France, with the entire staff on my wheel and all the opposite groups behind them,” he says. “With Jonas in yellow.”
Yet stage 18 of the Tour de France will all the time stay a treasured reminiscence, too, the place issues went so proper, actually, that he stays a bit of baffled the way it was potential. But that’s certainly one thing that provides to the perpetual attraction of biking on the whole: that it would not ever all come right down to pure science and maths or clear explanations, there’s all the time a component to success that continues to be hid throughout the rider’s character, too.
“Everything I discovered in my profession, I put it into apply there,” is how he makes an attempt to elucidate the win. “Physically, I used to be actually ready 100%. I used to be tremendous robust, however I can actually say I used to be not stronger than Kwiatkowski. But I performed it to perfection, and higher than he did.
“I’ve watched the stage as soon as at double velocity with my girlfriend, however I’ve seen it so many instances on social media, folks have despatched it to me so many instances, the Tour de France is so massive it retains on turning up a technique or one other it doesn’t matter what. And Honestly I nonetheless should say, although, that some moments I’ve questioned: how the fuck did I pull that off?”