'He needs to clear his head' – Arnaud De Lie's Tour of Flanders debut in doubt

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Arnaud De Lie had pinpointed Gent-Wevelgem as one of his main objectives of the season, but the Belgian made no impression on Sunday’s race. He would reach the finish on Vanackerestraat alone, rolling home in 90th place more than five minutes down on winner Mads Pedersen.

In both good days and bad, De Lie usually offers an affably plain-speaking analysis of his races. This time out, the 22-year-old preferred to drift through the mixed zone without a word and ride directly to his team bus. The post-mortem was instead left to Lotto-Dstny CEO Stéphane Heulot.

De Lie is scheduled to make his Tour of Flanders debut on Sunday, but Heulot conceded that the remainder of the youngster’s Classics campaign is now in doubt. With De Lie’s first Tour de France appearance to come later in the year, Lotto-Dstny might well opt to spare him any further blows to his morale in the coming days.

“We’re going to talk about Arnaud’s programme,” Heulot told Het Nieuwsblad. “Continuing to race just to race doesn’t help at all. We’re going to discuss things with him and see what’s best for him. We’ll revisit his race schedule. I don’t know yet what he wants to do, but he needs to clear his head.”

Barely a month ago, Lie’s Classics campaign was brimming with promise. After he went toe-to-toe with Wout van Aert at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, there seemed to be few limits on the heights the Bull of Lescheret might reach this Spring.

De Lie has been steadily losing altitude in the weeks since, starting with the crash that forced him to abandon Le Samyn in early March. He struggled at Paris-Nice a week later, pulling out after just three days. He crashed again in the finale of the GP de Denain, and even though he remounted to take fourth place there and fifth at Bredene-Koksijde a day later, he must have wondered if he was ever going to build up a head of steam this year.

His momentum has ground to a complete halt over the past two races. Before the season began, De Lie had outlined E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem as the most achievable goals of his Flemish campaign. At Harelbeke, he was nowhere to be seen when Mathieu van der Poel ignited the race on the Taaienberg, and he finished an anonymous 51st. On Sunday, De Lie missed the initial split at De Moeren with 150km remaining, and he was never seen at the head of affairs again.

“This is more a mental issue than a physical one," Heulot said. "The Classics he was really aiming for are now over, and that's a disappointment, but we're not going to hide behind anything. This isn’t easy, least of all for Arnaud himself. And when things go badly, you lose confidence. We’re going to deal with this as a team. We haven't seen the real Arnaud yet this year. We must find him again, and we will.”

Heulot’s thoughts were echoed by Lotto-Dstny sports manager Kurt Van de Wouwer. Although De Lie had been involved in a crash early in Gent-Wevelgem, his subdued display could not be explained entirely by that fall.

“Of course, that’s never beneficial. It wasn’t a heavy fall, but it’s not positive,” Van de Wouwer told Sporza, adding that De Lie had missed the split at De Moeren just as he had done on the Taaienberg two days earlier.

“But there was another regrouping after that and again we weren’t in the lead, so it wasn’t good enough. Arnaud said that he was disappointed. It didn't go the way he wanted, but he has no explanation for it either.

“We have no indication that Arnaud is ill or that something else is going on. That is not the case.”

De Lie was not scheduled to ride Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday, and Van de Wouwer confirmed that his participation in the Tour of Flanders is no longer a certainty.  “That is certainly a line of thought, but we’re not going to decide yet. We will look at everything together with the performance staff,” said Van de Wouwer. “If it’s the best choice for the remainder of his season, then so be it.”