A brief Belgian focus

I’ve written before about Thomas De Gendt, in what retrospectively seems like a terrible piece of work. But today, he deserves a brief revisit.

We mythologise our heroes and icons, creating narratives around them that fit what we want to believe. The nearest example to hand is the portrait of Robert the Bruce in my wallet, a symbol of Scottish resistance to English tyranny. The myth goes that after repeated defeats in battle, it was the sight of a spider persevering to rebuild its web that galvanised him into commanding the Scots army to victory. The myth is exactly that, but has succeeded in projecting an image of Scotland as proud and defiant in who they are.

In Thomas De Gendt I built up this myth of a man in control of his destiny. A man who existed for the nuance and inefficiencies of bike racing. A man who focused on different finish lines to everyone else, and could make everyone else suffer the consequences of his desires. 

At the Giro d’Italia ten years ago, when he ripped up the race on Italy’s most famous mountain, the Stelvio, he took the first Grand Tour stage win of his career. Parachuting himself up the General Classification standings, he would eventually take third place in just his second Grand Tour. 

It wasn’t until years later that De Gendt entered my conscience, but I was quickly drawn to his enigmatic persona off the bike and this seemingly mad man on it, targeting intermediate sprints and mountains classifications no one else would care for. Here the myth grew, centering on a man beholden to no-one, racing for the joy of a bicycle. A somewhat shy showman - not rejecting the data driven orthodoxy but thriving off it to light up races in unexpected moments. To me, he was not just a breakaway king but a king of the peloton, a man to admire and take heart from. I even bought myself a statuette, customised to vaguely resemble De Gendt in his eventual trademark of Lotto-Soudal red.

This myth was never to be busted, only progressively dampened. The once perceptionally free-range De Gendt was increasingly spotted on the front of the peloton, acting as a second-rate Belgian tractor to pull a sleepy peloton towards an inevitable sprint finish. He even appeared resigned to the rebrand, his latest Giro appearance after a winter of illness and injury marking the conversion of a breakaway king into a breakaway killer. Where once his attacks could leave a peloton trembling, they were seemingly now snuffed out and countered.

But yesterday, with a degree of spontaneity and his omnipresent tactical nous, De Gendt summoned his inner spider. In a large breakaway surrounded by younger, in form names with palmares longer than his, he waited for the first attacks then countered on his own, eventually bringing his noble teammate Vanhoucke and two others along to carpool. 

Setting his engine to turbo, De Gendt began pacing the group through the mini climbs of seaside Naples, far flung from the Italian Alps which he so magnificently caressed a decade prior. De Gendt’s pacing carried a dual purpose, fending off his younger chasers, whilst setting up an attack from Vanhoucke. Only when his compatriot teammate couldn’t muster the strength did the notorious TDG begin to consider the possibility of individual glory, something he had written off weeks before. With 300 metres to go, he launched his final sprint and was soon harking back to days once consigned to a memorable past, a first Grand Tour stage win since 2019. 

His reaction was visceral, even emotional. For cycling encourages underdogs, with supporters typically anchoring themselves towards the ‘have not’s than the ‘have’s. Here, the fans’ reaction to De Gendt’s win were powerful, almost more emotional than the typically stoic Flandrian, who recently reserves his strongest cycling sentiments for Twitter. Despite this composure, De Gendt was frank enough to admit afterwards that he had never believed he could win another Grand Tour stage. 

It feels like a triumphant but potentially final hurrah. 35 and out of contract at the end of the year, his team’s possible relegation from the World Tour could force De Gendt out. If this is to be destiny, then let this day sit as a tremendous glory. A day we reminded ourselves of the power and joy of racing, of the belief and ability to set and achieve our most ambitious of dreams. It also serves to remind us that even in many of the most fantastical of myths, there can often exist a basic underling of truth.

And if this is not the final destiny, then let’s consider the words of the man himself. After all, still modest after his latest great victory, Thomas De Gendt mused only so far as to say that his ‘good legs are coming’. May we wish strength upon his friends and rivals in the peloton for the months or years to come. For on this form, they may need more than a Scottish spider’s resolve to counter this most extraordinary athlete.