What the world can learn from Thomas De Gendt...

Simon Yates' victory in La Vuelta is a brilliant achievement and rightly deserved after falling so agonisingly short at the Giro in May. 

However, I feel greater attention should be payed to someone else who stood on the podium in Madrid. A rider who has been around longer than the Yates brothers and a rider whose effort in recent years has been largely unnoticed by the wider world in recent years. 

Thomas De Gendt's career could've gone in many different directions. In 2012, the 25 year old Belgian had kept himself in contention in the Giro d'Italia, only his second ever Grand Tour. De Gendt later attributed this to being incredibly light at the time, weighing nearly 60kg by the time the race reached Milan. And secondly, due to an incredible breakaway victory on stage 20 followed by a strong time trial the following day. Until that point, De Gendt had only appeared in the top 10 on 2 stages and was over 5 minutes behind the GC contenders. As such, the Belgian was given the freedom to make such audacious attacks over the Eastern Alps to thrust himself onto the world stage.

Not that he was expecting it. Both before and after this podium finish, De Gendt was known as a breakaway rider. A man who could make the impossible job of being in a breakaway worthwhile for more than mere sponsorship exposure. A winner of both the sprints and mountains classification at the Tour of Britain, De Gendt was a man who on his day could compete with the best but not when others were on theirs. So in the years that followed us to the present, De Gendt has been a dependable rider. For on the sprinters stages, he was the chosen man to haul back the less fortunate breakaway souls before on the medium mountain stages, seizing his chances and launching himself up the road in the search of mountain jersey points and stage wins. Such stage wins did eventually come in all three Grand Tours though, as a marked man, he relied on the GC contenders not contesting the stage wins - most notably on Mount Ventoux when all attention was focussed on Chris Froome's potential career as a Duathlete.

For years however, a mountain jersey eluded him over 3 weeks. Wins at Paris-Nice and the Tour Down Under couldn't be converted into the 3 week slogs that make up the greatest bike races on Earth. With De Gendt entering his 30s and his weight now at nearly 75kg, his chances of maintaining those precious polka dots to a capital city were slimming.. Sometimes however, you need luck and in the searing September heat of Spain this year, it all came together.

With the first week of La Vuelta heading through Andalucía in temperatures over 35 degrees, veteran Spaniard Luis Ángel Maté, familiar with the roads and climate took mountain points almost every day in the first week to give him a commanding lead based on the predominantly 2nd and 3rd category climbs the race had tackled so far. But one of the great struggles with burnout is that no athlete can usually spot the flame until it's too late and as the race entered the second week, Maté escaped the peloton out the back rather than the front, paying for his great efforts. and as the race headed to Galicia followed by the Basque country and Andorra, Maté knew the precious blue dots would soon vanish from his shoulders.

Galicia was devoid of climbs steep enough for the GC teams to want to chase the breakaways back for stage wins, so took points on the available climbs in the breakaways ahead of Bauke Mollema, a once great GC contender before becoming Alberto Contador's domestique in the mountains. Having closed the gap on Spain's west coast, De Gendt finally took the jersey from Mate on stage 17 - just in time for the Pyrenees.

Having read this far into this article you're probably wondering what on earth society can learn from this slightly eccentric Belgian who attacks for the sake of attacking in the desperate hope of a tangible reward at the end of it all. I guess Thomas De Gendt to me at least is a symbol of rugged determination, a rider who knows he isn't the best climber, sprinter or domestique in the world but will nonetheless pursue any finish line to achieve recognition. For sometimes, the end goal isn't always clear and effort may be considered a waste. But last week, Thomas De Gendt finally found his justification, his reasoning for his rugged determination and unwanted lactic acid in his legs. I don't believe De Gendt even rides for fame, but only for an endless quest for self-worth. And isn't that just slightly inspiring when all hope appears lost and all purpose seems hidden. Because Thomas De Gendt knew what he had to do even though he knew the Pyrenees lay ahead and Mollema was a more natural climber.

Realising the scale of this situation, De Gendt saw this chance and knew he couldn't sit back.


So on stage 20, the final opportunity to cement his victory, De Gendt went up the road along with Mollema and attacked all out on the first two climbs of six in the hope that Mollema would fall short on the latter climbs. It worked. Thomas De Gendt, the cult hero who hadn't stood on the final podium since that hot afternoon in Milan, finally returned on a humid evening in Madrid to the top step. No climber but a worker. A grafter who was also a team player, Thomas De Gendt deserved his place on the top step. A man devoid of ego and driven by stage profiles released months in advance, the cycling world owes a lot to this Flandrian for making the mundane stages remarkable and for making battles competitive. Thank you Thomas, for cycling would be a very different world without you. And thank you Thomas for showing the world that everything in life has its purpose and justification in life, even if it is a little implicit to say the least.

FACT of the IPOT: In 2012, Thomas De Gendt became the first Belgian to podium on a grand tour in 17 years. Not bad for  breakaway specialist...