INTERVIEW: GREG VAN AVERMAET
The classics A-lister on his new-look CCC Team and chasing the Tour of Flanders
This season brought big change and more responsibility for Greg Van Avermaet, as he headlines a new-look CCC squad. But as one of the most successful classics riders of his generation, he tells Procycling how he’s relishing the role and has his eyes xed on cracking the elusive Tour of Flanders
Greg Van Avermaet looks more scruffy Hollywood celeb than cyclist who has spent a bitter Belgium winter of change preparing for a highly publicised spring classics assault. He moves unfussed through a polished stone hotel lobby in Oman where regal, perfume-scented sheiks, athletes, journalists and US military officers all congregate to talk business. Van Avermaet is a regular at the Tour of Oman and uses its undulating roads, carved through sheer rock mountain, to prepare for the classics – perhaps the most discussed aspect of his career. Until now.
The 2016 Olympic road champion is accommodating and so affable that he can be hard to read. Twelve months ago, I’d likened Van Avermaet to Matt Damon – a Jason Bourne assassin on the bike and genuine nice guy off it. Today though he looks more like Adrian Grenier from Entourage, curly hair wild, casual swagger, and a deep tan that says LA rather than base training miles, though he’s got plenty of those. The 33-year-old has arrived in the desert on the back of a successful season debut at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in which he won stage 3, an uphill sprint ahead of Matteo Trentin, with new squad CCC, the phoenix that arose from the ashes of his prior BMC outfit.
“I’m really happy about my form,” he says. “I don’t win that much, so if you can win your first race it’s good to have, especially with a new team. It gives extra motivation to the team-mates. Hopefully, we’re in for a big year and I can put all my efforts into getting good results.”
Even in the Middle East, Van Avermaet, the pre-eminent face of CCC after the departure of BMC’s stage-racing talent in 2018, is in demand. He’s spoken to about 10 journalists over two days before the race has even begun, and arrived at our appointment direct from another interview in the hotel lobby.
The throng of Flemish reporters that follow his every move before ‘opening weekend’ far outweighs any other international media. It takes time and research to think of race-related questions that Van Avermaet’s national press presumably hasn’t already asked.
The subject of these early season interviews in February is almost always exclusively focused on the classics around the corner. The summer’s Tour de France as well as September’s Yorkshire World Championships, which on paper suit him, don’t rate a mention. It was the same last season when Van Avermaet wasn’t asked about a Tour route in which, like it did in 2015, he looked good for a stint in the yellow jersey as it featured plenty of classics-style stages, plus a TTT. As it was,
he ended up leading the Tour for eight days last summer.
So, it’s surprising when the Belgian says the question that he’s been asked most in 2019 isn’t of ‘home’ races, including the Tour Flanders, which continues to evade him, but how the new team is.
“It feels like it’s still BMC, but we have a new sponsor, new bikes and new riders all at a really high level. I was not really directly expecting that because I come from BMC, which was one of the best teams in the world,” Van Avermaet says. “Now we go with a lower budget, but we are still spoilt, and I still feel like this is one of the best teams I could ride for. I’m actually happy and really surprised how things went this winter. I think I made the right choice to be in this team. It still feels for me a little bit like home.”
Van Avermaet chose to stay while the likes of Tour de France contender Richie Porte and burgeoning grand tour racer (and world time trial champion) Rohan Dennis were among the numerous riders and staff who split, when BMC faced the financial abyss last season. “My manager and I were discussing with other teams for sure, but I still believed that Och [general manager Jim Ochowicz] could find another sponsor to keep this kind of team rolling,” he says. “Finally, it came. I’m super happy that I waited and can still be in the same environment I’ve been in for eight years. It was the most important thing, to keep what [late owner] Andy Rihs built with BMC.”
The riders and staff that exited did so out of either job security or a perceived change of culture the Polish backer ushered in. Van Avermaet says loyalty over the leadership promotion was his primary motivation for staying at a team that paid for and aided his transition from Captain Close-but-nocigar, to certified champion.
“It’s nice but it’s also quite hard because I like to share the leadership. In the classics I’m really happy to be the leader because that’s always been my ambition, a goal from when I was young. In the classics it gives me confidence. I have proved myself a lot of times in big races, so I can handle the pressure,” Van Avermaet says.
“But then in the other races, it’s sometimes nice [to share leadership]. We had several options to play with BMC. Now I feel pretty fine, but I think maybe next year we can still hire somebody else for GC and then it will split the leadership a little.”
Yet, Van Avermaet is far from the reluctant hero. Arguably, he worked harder and was more persistent than most to arrive at a point at the 2016 Olympic Games where occasional self-doubt was replaced with a realisation that he’d made it.
“The most important moment of my career was Rio because it was an Olympic title. I was always the guy who got a lot of good results, every race top 10, but before Rio I never really won a big race,” he says. “It was a great gift actually to win this because it’s something different to all the other races. You can win Flanders, you can win Roubaix but not a lot of guys get to be Olympic champion in their career.”
The following year Van Avermaet had his most successful spring campaign ever, claiming four major one-day victories – Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix.
“I don’t think I got stronger or anything else physically, but mentally it’s one of the most important things in cycling that you just feel relaxed, you don’t push yourself any more too much in the direction of trying to win,” he continues.
“I was maybe pushing too much in the direction of really wanting to have things, and there I made a big mistake. But it’s also in my character, you know, I’m not the kind of guy who says I’ll take it easy. I’m always the guy who tries to give every day the best of myself. That’s how I am. Sometimes it works against you.”
Ask around and Van Avermaet is not, by popular opinion, a champion athlete and crap human being as can sometimes happen in elite sport. It’s hard, too, with Van Avermaet’s casual and cordial demeanour to determine where the tenacity to win Olympic titles and monuments comes from. His life outside of cycling doesn’t give much of a clue either. When I ask about hobbies the answer is always the same – dining out with family and doing the school run with his daughter when home. “The boring life of a cyclist,” he laughs.
It’s from reading other people’s accounts that you start to see his teeth. Van Avermaet had barely pulled on the maillot jaune after stage 3 of the Tour last season when he was asked about BMC’s financially uncertain future. Sitting in a press conference then, he told the world’s cycling media that he wasn’t thinking about it. It was understandably diplomatic but also not true. In a later interview with Guillaume Van Keirsbulck, it was revealed that Van Avermaet, a day after that press conference, had sent his compatriot an Instagram message, asking if was interested in re-joining the WorldTour.
“It’s true, because we were looking for extra riders for the classics. A lot of guys were going away to other teams and we had to try and rebuild the team as good as possible. Then you see who is still available and who you think is a good help for you in the classics. Guillaume was one of my first thoughts because he’s talented,” Van Avermaet says.
“Jim Ochowicz said to me that he had the sponsor the first week of the Tour. It was quite late. Then you start putting some names on the table. It’s nice to have the confidence of the team if you can do this.
“You have some influence but it’s Jim who decides who is coming and who is not. If Jim is against it then it’s not possible. It’s also the price of the riders. It depends on a lot of factors, but you give your opinion and then it’s the manager who decides if he thinks the opinion is right or not.”
Van Avermaet’s stage win in Valenciana suggests he and management selected well. In Oman too, CCC displayed a healthy dose of morale, even though Van Avermaet’s best result was second to Sonny Colbrelli on stage 4. Results were a focus at the earlyseason races, but, more importantly, they provided Van Avermaet an opportunity to familiarise with the team’s new recruits.
“Often he’s very particular and doesn’t want too much support. When he has an issue, he says it. It’s rare but then you have to really listen,” says Michael Schär, Van Avermaet’s team-mate since 2011. “He knows the races, he trains on the parcours every day. He’s moving there almost with closed eyes, which is cool for him but hard for foreigners when they come to the team to get to know the parcours. He moves very smoothly through the peloton.”
The spring race Van Avermaet reveres is the Tour of Flanders. There is good reason why the race has developed into a central focus, at least for the media, when it comes to him. “It’s my home race and I think it fits me the best. It’s short climbs, and I’m most of the time a better climber than all of the classics guys. If you see my results, and even a mountain stage in the Tour, if
I really go for it, I can perform better than any classics guy,” he says. “Flanders is not that easy, you have these explosive climbs and with the cobbles you have to be a bit fast, which I am. It’s a long race so I think it fits me better than any kind of race, but I haven’t won it so far.”
Van Avermaet does have an aptitude for it – he was runner-up twice in Flanders in 2017 and 2014, and has five top-five appearances. So, why has he not won it yet?
“I was a couple of times close to winning Flanders, but it was circumstances. One year I was in the front with Stijn Vandenbergh and he could not ride with me. It was 2014 and if he rode with me, I’d have won Flanders. If Patrick Lefevere said that year in the car to Vandenbergh, yeah, you can go with him and try to best him in the sprint, or try to attack in the last four kilometres, I would have won Flanders,” Van Avermaet says. “But sometimes it’s not in your own hands, and some teams ride against you. Or you have some bad luck at certain moments and miss another year.
“I’m almost 34 and still haven’t won Flanders. But I still have time, and I’m also confident that I still have a few chances. I would love to win Flanders but it’s not like I get sick of it. We’ll see how it goes.”
CCC sports directors say Van Avermaet, as a seasoned pro, doesn’t need much guidance. However, they have weighed in this year. The puncheur opened his spring campaign at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad finishing second to Deceuninck’s Ždenek Štybar. Traditionally Van Avermaet would have started Kuurne-Brussel-Kurrne the day after but listened to staff instruction not to this year, in lieu of bigger goals.
Van Avermaet has a broad outlook on the spring. He argues, like others in the peloton, that if you focus on just one race, say Flanders, you lessen your chances in the others. “I look at it from Nieuwsblad to Amstel Gold Race. This is the period I want to perform,” he says. “I think it’s almost impossible to really target one, because if you’re not good the week before, in E3 or Gent-Wevelgem, you’re also not going to win Flanders.
“It starts with Nieuwsblad, if you’re there already good it’s really nice and if you can win it’s even better. Then it comes by itself. You have the confidence, you have the shape and then you keep it as long as possible... I want to perform in this period instead of one race.”
A maiden victory at Flanders would be another bucket-list tick, but a strong classics campaign doesn’t typically define whether a season is a success or failure for Van Avermaet. “If you have a good win in the classics it makes it easier for the whole year, but I’m always saying I’m more than only a classics rider. Some riders, their season really depends on the classics; they have to perform. It’s really hard to do something else,” he says. “For me, I have the feeling that okay, classics are important, but I can still win a stage of the Tour, I can still wear the yellow jersey. I still have San Sebastián and also the Worlds to make it a better year.”
Van Avermaet still manages nervous energy before a classic, which is at odds with his demeanour in the lobby, relaxed back into an armchair, hands loosely poised as he has been the entire interview. “You have to have a bit of nervousness to perform. You have to be hungry,” he says.
Van Avermaet is neither the amnesia affected Bourne or one-hit wonder Grenier. He knows where he comes from, and fame has not derailed his motivation.“It’s not about money but which goals you set yourself and which goals you still want to reach in your career as a cyclist. With me it’s still winning Flanders, it’s still winning a World Championship,” he says. “I have an okay palmarès but it can be much more. For me, it’s giving my best every day to perform as well as possible.”