Bjorg Lambrecht (left) with his Lotto Soudal teammates(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Bjorg Lambrecht (Belgium) after the European championship road race(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Bjorg Lambrecht (Belgium)(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The European championships U23 podium: Bjorg Lambrecht (Belgium), Aliaksandr Riabushenko (Belarus) and Andrea Vendrame (Italy).(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal) may have been blocked from racing the Santos Tour Down Under due to administrative errors over his ADAMS Whereabouts, but the young Belgian has taken it in his stride and used his time in Australia to take in some warm-weather training. The 20-year-old will now make his WorldTour debut at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on January 28.
Lambrecht was down to make his professional debut at the Tour Down Under and flew to Adelaide to take part in the race almost a fortnight ago. However, an administrative error meant that he was unable to compete as UCI rules state that all neo-pros must have a backlog of six weeks (42 days) of whereabouts data before they can race.
According to Lotto Soudal, Lambrecht only received his login details for the system on December 15, with the message that he must log Whereabouts data as of December 17 – just 30 days before the start of the Tour Down Under. The UCI would not provide the rider with special dispensation and, instead of racing the Tour Down Under, he rode the majority of the stages ahead of the peloton.
“I was really looking forward to my first WorldTour race. There are more races coming and I’ll train here and hope to be good at the Cadel Evans race.
“It was a mistake from the UCI, I think. They gave me my login too late, and that’s a little bit shit for me. It’s really annoying and if they had told me before arriving in Australia it would have been much better because I could have ridden the Mallorca Challenge. Now we’re here in Australia. I only found that there was a problem a few days ago.”
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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
