ProTeam Sports Director Dirk Demol looks back on Lotto Dstny’s Tour de France
“Lotto Dstny can look back to a successful Tour de France. We came with the goal of winning a stage and we succeeded. On top of the victory with Victor (Campenaerts), we were in the top 5 seven times with among them two podiums. We opened the Tour with good results of Maxim (Van Gils). He was up there, where he had to be and proved once again he took a big step this year. Sadly he fell out with covid on the second rest day, and in the last week there were still some stages he had circled in red. Maxim trains again now and looks ahead to new goals.”
“For Arnaud (De Lie) it was his first Tour, we are very satisfied with the performances and grinta he showed. He will definitely come stronger out of this. He’s only 22 years old, so we know we will come back for more with him. In the sprints you need some luck as well, sometimes it doesn’t open up at the right time and you’re stuck. We came here with 5 Tour debutants, maybe we missed some more experience in the leadout but the boys did a great job.”
“Then the great victory of Victor in stage 18 made the whole team super happy. It’s very impressive, especially how he did it. He was already thinking about the stage in the January training camp. His plan in the morning was to follow MichaÅ‚ Kwiatkowski, then they rode away in the final with three and he finished it off. Saying it is one thing, but doing it, especially in the Tour is something else.”
“During the Friday stage Jarrad (Drizners) had a really difficult time. But the team spirit was there, it’s beautiful how good the atmosphere was during the past weeks. Jarrad crashed quite hard, but still he managed to finish the Tour. He’s so grateful for the work of his teammates. Sébastien (Grignard) showed he deserved the selection, he’s always calm and did a lot of work. Brent (Van Moer) is also a great teammate. His form was very good, he went in the break a couple of times but then it didn’t work out. He gets a lot of appreciation. Cedric (Beullens) was also really strong, he fits perfectly in the squad and did a lot of efforts.”
Picture: PhotoNews
