ProTeam Thomas De Gendt before his last grand tour in the search of the double-triple
“It’s special that it’s my last grand tour. I really wanted to be here for a last time. Grand tours were always special to me during my whole career. I’m excited and a bit sad at the same time that it’s the final one. I prepared with an altitude camp and worked more closely with the team’s nutritionist to really have the perfect weight. With the years it’s not getting easier to lose some weight before a grand tour so I needed some extra help. I went all in with my training program and heat training. I want to start this Vuelta without any regrets and fully prepared. I know it will be a hard three weeks, but I just hope to be on a level to make a chance on a stage win.”
“There are a lot of chances this year’s Vuelta for the breakaway. I will try as much as possible, when I feel I have good legs, and then we will see which breakaway stage I have a chance on winning. I didn’t pick out a real stage. My ambition since the beginning of this season has been clear: to take another stage win in the Vuelta, so I can make it 2 stage wins in each grand tour. It’s not that it will make my career, but it would be another cherry on the cake.”
25th grand tour
“In those 16 years of my career I saw a lot changing: the material, the way of racing, training, the amount of staff, the safety in the bunch, nutrition during and before and after the race, it’s a completely different kind of cycling actually. I have the plan if I’m in a big breakaway I will not wait for others to attack, but I will go for it myself.”
“My most beautiful memory during those 24 grand tours I have done already is definitely my stage win in Saint-Étienne in the Tour de France of 2019. It was just very exciting in the end and a beautiful scenario. A less beautiful memory was the Stelvio stage when it was snowing in the 2014 Giro. It was freezing, the race took four hours but in my memory it feels like it was three days.”
Picture: PhotoNews
