Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
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2023 Tour de France | 2023 Giro d'Italia
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered. - Edgar Allan Poe
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Current racing:
- Oct 11: Giro del Veneto
Upcoming racing
- Oct 15: Japan Cup
- Oct 15: Chrono des Nations
- Oct 15: Veneto Classic
Latest completed racing:
- Oct 8: Paris-Tours
- Oct 7: Il Lombardia
- Oct 5: Gran Piemonte
- Oct 5: Paris-Gien-Bourges
- Oct 3: Tre Valli Varesine
- Oct 3: Binche-Chimay-Binche
- Oct 3: Múnsterland Giro
- Oct 2: Coppa Bernocchi
Here’s the team’s announcement:
Lidl-Trek is proud to announce the signing of Tim Declercq, affectionately known as ‘El Tractor,’ to a two-year contract. Tim’s unwavering dedication and exceptional work ethic throughout his 12 years as a professional have made him one of the most recognized and respected figures in the peloton. During his seven years at Soudal – Quick Step, Tim played a pivotal role in numerous team triumphs, contributing to victories in four different monuments. Now, he’s revved up to put his motor to work in a fresh chapter with Lidl-Trek.
"El Tractor" pulls the peloton in stage one of the 2021 Paris-Nice. Sirotti photo
“I think Lidl-Trek is a growing team with great values,” said Tim Declercq. “They ride attractively and are stepping up their game every year. I’m super excited to join them. It also looks like they are keen to start working more and more with a science-based approach and are open for innovation. With my background in physical education studies, I really look forward to working in that environment.
“It seems a bit like the Lidl logo is chasing me during my career!” joked Declercq. “But, I think it’s great for cycling that such a big firm wants to invest in cycling. That they chose the Lidl-Trek team to sponsor only shows that it’s a super professional team with great values.
“Of course it will be very strange to leave Quick Step after all those years. Some people of the staff and riders really became friends after all this time, and I’ve got some great moments together. On the other hand, the last few years the team has also not been the same anymore and I really look forward to a new challenge.
“I know most of the Belgians quite well, and I think we will have a lot of fun during training camps. I also look forward to working for every rider the team wants me to, but for sure I hope to be of value to Mads Pedersen in the classics and the Grand Tours.”
Luca Guercilena, Lidl-Trek General Manager, expressed his enthusiasm for Tim’s arrival, stating, “We are thrilled to welcome Tim Declercq to our team. His remarkable dedication and exceptional skills make him the prototypical domestique. Tim has made a name for himself not because of his own results, but for his selfless spirit and willingness to give his all to the collective goal. For this reason, I believe Tim will be a valuable addition to our roster. We look forward to achieving great success as we take this new step together.”
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The team sent me this:
The Lotto Dstny Ladies Team ended the 2023 season only last week at Binche-Chimay-Binche, but is already fully focused on preparing the upcoming season. The continental developing squad has finalized its selection for the 2024 season. Just like this year, the Lotto Dstny Ladies Team will consist of 15 riders, with again a strong focus on developing young talents. The squad will also welcome six new riders (Maureen Arens, Dina Boels, Thalita De Jong, Audrey De Keersmaeker, Alberte Greve and Anna Van Wersch). Just like last year, Grace Verbeke and Dirk Onghena will form the sports directors duo.
Sports manager Kurt Van de Wouwer reflects on the past season of the Lotto Dstny Ladies and already looks ahead to 2024. “Two years ago, we took another direction with our women’s team. With a very young squad, completed with also several experienced riders, the main focus was on developing and supporting our talents. This year, we continued to build on that strategy and it’s safe to say this is paying off. The riders all took some steps forward and we’ve managed to get some solid results, which is really nice to see. Sports directors Grace Verbeke and Dirk Onghena have played an important role in this, acted as a nice duo and did a great job.”
“Next season, the goal is to further build on the existing foundations and to take some more steps, through a racing program that will be extended a little. Several new talents have been added to the team, as well as more experienced riders, and we’d like to give them all the possibilities to further develop themselves”, concludes Van de Wouwer.
Dirk Onghena has been part of the Lotto Dstny Ladies project since the end of 2021 and looks back with satisfaction on his second season as a sports director.
Dirk Onghena: “Since joining this project, several nice steps were taken and I’m looking back on a successful season, in which Grace Verbeke and myself formed a good duo of sports directors. During a nice racing program, we’ve tried to teach the riders as much as possible, going from things like positioning to gaining tactical insight. We’ve noticed a nice evolution and that showed through the results we’ve set throughout the season. Of course, we also need to be realistic. We’re not able to get big results on WorldTour level yet but being competitive at UCI 1.1 level is already a nice step forward. I’m thinking of the 2nd place of Julie Hendrickx in Ekeren, several nice results and a victory for Katrijn De Clercq and the impressive performance of Fauve Bastiaenssen amongst several world-class riders at Dwars door het Hageland.”
Also Grace Verbeke is happy about her first season at the Lotto Dstny Ladies. “I’ve managed to integrate the team really well and felt at home quite fast thanks to the guidance of Dirk Onghena. Personally, I find it really important to create a nice atmosphere amongst the group and give the girls the confidence to get the best possible result, together. I think we managed to create that, because they all would go through fire for each other. There was a good team spirit but that was also converted in nice performances. I’m really motivated to fully support the team also next year. We’ve done some reinforcements and multiple riders are ready for the next step.”
Composition Lotto Dstny Ladies 2024: Wilma Aintila (19), Maureen Arens (20), Fauve Bastiaenssen (25), Dina Boels (18), Katrijn De Clercq (21), Thalita De Jong (29), Audrey De Keersmaeker (24), Mieke Docx (27), Esmée Gielkens (22), Alberte Greve (18), Julie Hendrickx (20), Julie Nicolaes (19), Quinty Van de Guchte (24), Anna Van Wersch (22) and Sterre Vervloet (19).
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The team posted this:
The American has won stages at the Tour Féminin de l'Ardèche, the Ladies Tour of Norway, the Tour de Suisse, a pair of stages at the Giro d’Italia Donne, as well as the queen of the mountains competition at the Giro d’Italia Donne. She has also taken the bronze position on general classification at GP Plouay, Itzulia Women, the Ladies Tour of Norway, and the Tour de Suisse.
Kristen Faulkner racing in the 2023 Strade Bianche. Sirotti photo
The 30-year-old excels in time trials, having placed sixth at her debut in the 2022 world championships in the event, but don’t make the mistake of pigeonholing her.
“I like to go solo,” Kristen says. “I like to work really hard. But I like to make it both a race and a game where it’s fun, it’s unpredictable and I can catch people off guard. I’m a rider who is time trial-heavy and very much an all-rounder with a penchant for attacking solo.”
Her versatility and drive to attack are part of what made team general manager Esra Tromp so keen to sign the American.
“One of her best assets is that she has no fear of racing aggressively,” Esra says. “We’ve seen riders in the peloton being afraid to find their limits and to try something different. It’s really refreshing with Kristen that she doesn’t have that fear and she has the courage to experiment with a new tactic or to try a new race. That says a lot about her.”
Kristen’s nonchalance when it comes to going against the grain comes in part from her newness to the sport.
“I question the status quo,” she says. “When I’m on a team and I say, ‘Why do we do this?’ and people say, ‘Well, it’s just how it’s done. It’s how we’ve always done things,’ I don’t accept that as a good enough answer. I challenge those assumptions and the status quo ways of doing things because I have no preconceived notions about how things should be. I just want to know that we’re doing something in the best way. I think sometimes people who grew up in the sport have been indoctrinated in certain ways of doing things and I bring a fresh perspective. It’s not that I don’t respect the status quo; systems usually exist for a reason. It’s more than I think learning is an iterative process and we have to be open to new ideas because the world is changing so fast and women’s cycling is changing even faster. We can’t assume that what’s worked in the past will work in the future.”
Growing up in Alaska, earning her undergraduate degree at Harvard, and then moving to New York City, all before she had ever considered bike racing, have certainly helped Kristen develop a fresh perspective on the peloton.
“I was working at a finance job in Manhattan when I was 24,” Kristen says. “I had been a rower in college and I was looking for a team. And so I went to this introductory women's clinic in Central Park with running shorts and a T-shirt and they taught us how to clip in and ride around cones. Later I did a beginners’ race. I thought, ‘Oh, this is kind of fun.’ And then I learned about all the strategy that was involved with cycling and how intellectual it is and I thought, ‘Oh, it's really fun!’”
Four years into her career as a professional racer, Kristen continues to be enthralled by the mental aspect of the sport.
“Cycling is both a race and a game,” she says. “I really like the game aspect of it where you can catch people off guard or find the right moments to attack. I try to be unpredictable. For me, that’s what makes it so much fun. I enjoy the chess game of cycling. I enjoy using my strengths to help my teammates as well. Sometimes I attack and make other teams chase so that my teammate can show up fresh to the finish line. Or I use my TT strengths to chase down a break. It’s like a game of poker where we can play different cards depending on how we think our competition will react, and that’s fun.”
For 2024, Kristen has two goals.
“I want to make the Olympics squad for the time trial and I want to become more of a GC rider,” she says. “I’ll probably go for results in races with a time trial. Depending on the race, I can see myself supporting the team or working on being a GC rider. I see myself as someone who can fill a lot of different roles. I don't have one distinct thing that I'm good at – I'm not a pure climber, I’m not a pure sprinter – and that gives me a lot of freedom to try different things. The team can use that to our advantage by using me to make the race unpredictable, someone who can win a race but in a very unpredictable way. But at the end of the day, I just want to win with this team.”
This summer, Kristen was hit by a driver while training in California, leaving her unable to race while her injuries healed. She returned to racing in September, having spent much of her recovery period with her family in Alaska.
“When I came back to racing, I felt like I had had a good break and now I’m really motivated going into next season. I feel fresh and excited,” Kristen says. “I also realized how much I love the sport. It can be hard. People can get burned out. But when I was away from cycling, I really missed it and I realized there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Despite the crash, my love for the sport, my passion for the sport, my motivation for the sport hasn’t changed at all. And that’s a really powerful feeling.”
With her motivation at an all-time high, the opportunity to sign with EF Education-Cannondale feels like a homecoming to her.
“The first reason I wanted to sign with the team was that I really wanted to go back to an American team,” Kristen says. “Being an American on an American team is important to me. The second reason is that I really aligned with the values of the sponsors, in particular with EF Education First being an education company. Education is something I deeply value. I’ve raced on Cannondales before and I love how they ride so it feels in some ways like I’m going back home. The final reason is the series of conversations I’ve had with the management. They talked to me as a person and not just a number and that was important to me going into the team. I also know some of the riders already and I’m excited to race with them.”
“I've never been this excited about a team before,” Kristen says. “And I like it. It's very genuine, like I really feel intrinsically excited. And that makes me really happy because I feel like that means I'm on the right team.”
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Team Israel-Premier Tech posted this:
The last stage of Tour of Hainan bore witness to a spectacle of resilience and heartache as Israeli sprinter Itamar Einhorn fiercely raced to the finish line, clinching second place after a tight sprint.
However, the triumph was overshadowed by an all-encompassing emptiness, making the result feel distant and untouched.
Better days. Itamar Einhorn wins the Israeli road championships in 2022.
“I’ve never felt like this before,” Einhorn confessed later. “Of course, I wanted to win. But I didn’t feel anything. There was neither the sting of missing the victory nor a trace of satisfaction from finishing second. The utter sense of triviality weighed heavily on me, knowing that while I raced thousands of kilometers away, my homeland was engulfed in a horrific act of terror and slaughter.”
As the grueling four-and-a-half-hour race unfolded, Einhorn was repeatedly haunted by the images and videos of the atrocities back home since that ominous Saturday morning of October 7, making it one of the darkest days his country has endured. The memory of the hundreds of young individuals, his peers, who were brutally murdered while celebrating at a music festival, and the families slaughtered cold-bloodedly in their homes in the kibbutzim tormented him. “You’re in a race. You’re supposed to disconnect from everything, but how is it possible?” he recounted. “It’s a storm of emotions that you don’t want to, nor can you, escape. I am shattered, but the images from one of the videos that turned my stomach keep haunting me: two children whose parents were murdered before their eyes, and the terrorists leaving a red smear on the walls declaring ‘we don’t kill children’ – while in other houses they executed bound children. And I keep riding, tears overwhelming me. I wonder how this can happen, how much evil and barbarism can be the act of a human being. Then I shake myself and return to the race as the peloton returns to full gas. Until the next moment when things calm down a bit, and I am caught by these horrifying images again.”
This emotional turbulence resonated with the Israeli riders of the team, leaving them torn between the horrendous terrorist attack by Hamas, which has killed almost one thousand Israelis, and their commitment to the team amidst national trauma. Nadav Raisberg candidly shared his ordeal on the eve of the Paris-Tours race, less than a day after the bloody Sabbath. “The first thought was that I couldn’t race. How can one even think about a bicycle race when I am receiving messages about friends fighting there to put an end to this unspeakable slaughter? But after a heart-to-heart with my family, I resolved that breaking down was not an option. On the contrary, I had to do something extraordinary in the race. So, I pushed into a breakaway, hoping to vie for a win, especially on this day. In the end, we clinched victory with the remarkable Riley Sheehan, and my teammates rejoiced rightfully, it was a tremendous achievement. But I couldn’t join in; I couldn’t celebrate with them,” Raisberg reminisced. Similarly, Oded Kogut grappled with the decision to participate in the Under 23 race but eventually chose to stand with his teammates. “It wouldn’t be fair to abandon my friends,” he reflected.
The distance from home exacerbated the emotional distress. Between training and races, constant phone calls and messages connected them to the unfolding tragedy back home. In China, Einhorn and Omer Goldstein found solace in each other’s company, sharing the pain and trauma. “It helped alleviate the distress a little,” said Goldstein, but he also shared how the empathy extended beyond the Israeli riders. “Chris Froome was equally shocked. We talked about the horrific videos circulating online, and he was horrified by what he saw. I guess it’s a sentiment shared by every human being who witnessed the atrocities,” Goldstein remarked.
Labeled as Israel’s “September 11,” the carnage took the lives of several Israeli athletes, including triathletes and cyclists who found themselves in the bloodied zone of the Negev during their routine Saturday morning training rides.
Veteran Israeli rider Guy Sagiv feels that he may very well escaped a similar fate. Accompanied by his partner Omer Shpira, they had come for a short visit to Israel last week, staying at Omer’s family home in Ein HaBesor, near the Gaza border.
“Fortunately, we decided to stay in the north of the country on Sabbath. We set out for training on Saturday morning just as the grim news from the south began pouring in,” Sagiv recalled. In Ein HaBesor, the residents were able to repel the terrorist attack after they invaded the village. Sagiv said: “We were told about the many pairs of bicycles found on the surrounding roads; the fate of their riders still unknown. We know a miracle saved us, but I can’t stop thinking about riders like us who went out for morning training only to be cold-bloodedly murdered and about the hundreds of children and young individuals slaughtered mercilessly. Sometimes, I feel like I’m living in a nightmarish dream, hoping someone will wake me up from it.”
Some Israeli team riders wrapped up their racing season last Sunday, but returning home has proven to be a struggle. The cancellation of numerous flights to Israel left them stranded in Girona, glued to the TV, waiting for the first chance to journey back to Israel. “The feeling is that our place is there now,” Kogut expressed somberly.
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