ProTeam Staff Stories – Soigneur Filip De Keyser: “I immediately felt home at Lotto when I started here 10 years ago.”
“I started giving massages as I was an amateur cyclist myself. I followed a massage course and quickly had some riders who came to my house. The team ‘Jonge Renners Roeselare’ asked me to go with the young riders to the Tour of Limburg. The same day I sent an email to six professional teams with the question if I could go to the races as a soigneur. At that point I was delivering spices to butchers for 20 years already.”
“I got a phone call from Hilaire Van der Schueren to go to the Tour of the Basque Country with Wanty. I accepted that offer and during that tour I got a call from Mario Aerts and from that point I rolled into the Lotto Team as well. I combined work in both teams, but I immediately felt home at Lotto and in 2014 I got a full time job to work in the men’s and ladies team.”
“From all the work you do as a soigneur, only 2 hours a day is really giving massages. The job is much more, it starts with the breakfast for the riders, washing their clothes, making sure the cars are clean, making bottles and doing bottle and musette points. All these different parts make it a very interesting job. I am away 200 days per year, you miss a lot at home, but you do it because you love to do it. I have a daughter, I know I don’t have the ideal dad profile, but on the other hand when I’m at home for one week I can plan in a lot of things with my daughter.”
Special bond with Campi
“During the past 10 years I made a lot of friends in the team. I have a special bond with Campi (Victor Campenaerts). When Victor came into the team, he wanted to go to Sierra Nevada for one month to train. He made a wish list to the soigneurs of what he expected on the time trial day, everyone thought that list was crazy. They asked me to go with him and so I did. I took my bike to that training camp and also sometimes biked together with him, we spoke a lot and immediately had a bond. I also like that Campi is so strict, it’s easy to work with him.”
“The race I looked forward to the most was the Tour de France. As a rider you want to do it once, but also as a staff member. This year the Belgian Champion jersey of Arnaud (De Lie) was very beautiful. Last year I did the Tour and two days later I went to watch the time trial in the Tour de Wallonie. I just love watching cycling, it’s my passion. Now in the off season I go one month to Calpe to bike myself and I give massages to some riders at home.”
Pictures: Brecht Steenhouwer
