Tiesj Benoot, 32, is in his twelfth season as a professional. On Sunday in Montreal he will be Belgium’s road captain for the elite men’s road race at the World Championships, his eighth appearance at the event, under national coach Serge Pauwels.
Benoot has announced that the team will race without race radios. He also called the pairing of Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert within the Belgian squad a “luxury”: “In Belgium, we like to turn the Remco-Wout duo into a problem. But it’s a luxury!” he told DH.
Benoot also addressed the withdrawal of Tadej Pogačar, the reigning double world champion, who will not start: “The withdrawal of the reigning double world champion obviously changes everything.” For Belgium’s road captain, that absence weighs on Sunday’s race: it makes it harder, in his view, for Belgium to escape its responsibilities, with the Evenepoel-Van Aert duo now firmly in the spotlight.
I don’t have an earpiece either. I’ve got a mobile clipped to the handlebars, and when the battery drops to zero at the Lasne roundabout, I decide on my own whether we turn right or head back the long way. He has to do that for an entire national team, for the whole race, with nobody in his ear to tell him where the wind’s coming from. For me it’s six of us, with a coffee waiting at the finish, and nobody telling me whether to turn right either. He’s got a luxury duo behind him. I’ve got a bloke who zigzags and who, mind you, has never won a Worlds or run a red light in Oudenaarde.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
