Pressure on the Belgian riders in their major homeland race
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Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) on the Kemmelberg(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Two national champions: Jens Debusschere and André Greipel(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)
Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Jens Debusschere and Lars Bak (Lotto-Soudal) during their attack(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal)(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)
Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) on a solo move(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The Tour of Flanders is the biggest race of the year for Belgian riders and Belgian teams, and no one is more aware of that than Lotto-Soudal's Jürgen Roelandts and Jens Debusschere. The latter had extra pressure on him, as the Belgian national champion.
He trained even harder for Flanders because of the national jersey, he said in this exclusive video for inCycle. Roelandts added that as a Belgian rider in a Belgian team, "you get a bit more pressure than a foreign team."
The teammates and roommates have another common bond. Jurgen's sister Kelly is Debusschere's girlfriend. Watching the race was stressful, she admitted. She was pulling for her brother to finish top five or on the podium, while saying Debusschere was very nervous about the race.
Roelandts just missed out on his sister's goal, finishing eighth, while Debusschere was further down at 25th.
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