Lotto Dstny

Lotto Dstny is the team with the longest running sponsorship in professional cycling, having borne the name of the Belgian national lottery since the team’s inception in 1985. Traditionally, they have held a fierce rivalry with Belgium’s other big team, Soudal Quick-Step - going so far as losing their long-time sponsor Soudal to their rivals for 2023 - but they have tended to be overshadowed by Patrick Lefevere’s riders in recent years. 

At the end of 2023, the team was delivered something of a blow when they were demoted from the WorldTour to ProConti level, not scoring enough points in the first cycle of the UCI’s new relegation system. In theory, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Lotto Dstny as they are still invited to many of the biggest races, but what they are missing is starts in all the Grand Tours. 

Despite the step down, the team retains a WorldTour-level line-up for 2023, including prolific sprinters Caleb Ewan and Arnaud De Lie, plus former Hour Record holder Victor Campanaerts and famed breakaway specialist Thomas De Gendt. Their new arrivals for this season include Jacopo Guarnieri and Pascal Eenkhoorn. With three seasons until the next renewal of licences, it will be a long while before Lotto Dstny have a chance at returning to the WorldTour.

Maxim Van Gils

Arnaud De Lie

Florian Vermeersch

Lennert Van Eetvelt

Andreas Kron

Jasper De Buyst

Milan Menten

Caleb Ewan

Jarne Van de Paar

Alec Segaert

Brent Van Moer

Eduardo Sepulveda

Sylvain Moniquet

Victor Campenaerts

Cédric Beullens

Pascal Eenkhoorn

Harm Vanhoucke

Harry Sweeny

Arjen Livyns

Liam Slock

Michael Schwarzmann

Johannes Adamietz

Rüdiger Selig

Frederik Frison

Jarrad Drizners

Mathijs Paasschens

Thomas De Gendt

Sébastien Grignard

Jacopo Guarnieri

Racing

News

Race News

Luke Plapp and Caleb Ewan to lead Jayco AlUla at Tour Down Under

Caleb Ewan raced the Tour Down Under for the Australian national selection in 2023

 will look to two of their newest signings to lead the line in the first 

 set to target the GC and sprints at the 

The Australian team confirmed their roster for the six-day race on Saturday evening, with the home riders given leadership roles for the event that combines sprint stages and a GC built around Willunga Hill and Mount Lofty, which may suit either Plapp or teammate 

The two Australians are both new to Jayco’s roster this year - Plapp for the first time after cutting short his contract with 

 - and will both be looking to kick off their tenures and seasons with a bang in Adelaide.

Luke Plapp signs four-year 'coming home' deal with Jayco AlUla

Transfer Mechanics: A more mature Caleb Ewan handed career lifeline at Jayco

Ewan, who has won nine stages of the Tour Down Under in the past, will be hoping to add to his tally for the first time since 2020, and also test out his sprint support after departing Lotto Dstny, partly due to a lack of results and opportunities.

Joining the more sprint-oriented portion of the line-up will be Australians 

Plapp, meanwhile, will be focusing on the overall classification, as the 22-year-old looks to build upon the promise he has shown as a young rider. Alongside Yates, the team have options when it comes to the GC and climbing stages, but there is added excitement for the Australian heading home with an Australian team.

“As an Australian the Santos Tour Down Under is such an important and special race. Racing for Team Jayco AlUla the race is even more important as it is an Australian team, I am so motivated and excited for the race, we really want to win and start the season off on a high,” Plapp said in a press release issued by the race.

“For me personally, I want to perform at my best, it will be my first UCI WorldTour race with Team Jayco AlUla, so I want to work well with my teammates. We have an incredibly strong team with Simon Yates, so we are aiming for stage wins with Caleb Ewan, and a strong overall result."

Matt White: We don’t know how good Luke Plapp can be

Alongside Yates and Plapp, Adelaide native 

 will round out the team’s climbing contingent down under.

Though it’s perhaps not the biggest race on the WorldTour calendar, the Tour Down Under represents a big goal for Australia’s only WorldTour team, and sports director Mat Hayman highlighted how their team selection reflects their ambitions for the race.

“It is one of the most important races on the calendar for us as a team and for 2024, we are lining up with a very strong group and the riders we have can really tackle each stage,” said Mat.

“Having Plapp and Ewan join us will be a huge boost and with Yates returning after he enjoyed a stage win and second place finish overall in this year’s edition, we are coming in with high ambitions to win. It’s a dynamic course and we want to put on a great show for the Australian fans who only get to see us race once a year in January. Hopefully 2024 will be a memorable one.”

, also confirmed their squad for the women’s race last week, featuring a similarly Australian-leaning line-up.

2023 stage winner Alex Manly will likely lead the charge for the overall, whilst Ruby Roseman-Gannon will be a contender for the sprints. They will be joined by Georgie Howe, Amber Pate, Georgia Baker and Ella Wyllie.

The women’s Tour Down Under takes place 12-14 January, with the men’s race following from 16 to 21 January.

To explore more about the Tour Down Under, including its route, history and all the latest news, head to our dedicated 

Features

Racing Features

Fewer rules, more fun: How the pro peloton is embracing gravel racing

Plenty of road pros tackled Serenissima Gravel in Italy

While first being dubbed as a trend and something that only ex-pros do once they’ve hung up their road bikes, gravel racing now looks like it's here to stay.

The gravel racing scene has been steadily simmering away in the background over recent years, largely in the US Midwest. However, when the UCI brought gravel under its umbrella in 2022, with the launch of the Trek UCI Gravel World Series, it was a major step forward for the discipline.

 and European Championships have followed since, helping gravel racing to force its way into the mainstream cycling discourse. Even the Tour de France has included some gravel sections in its 

, while current UCI Gravel World Champion 

Road cycling has rightfully made a name for itself as a sport that is constantly chasing improvements, whether that be in equipment, nutrition or tactics. Yet gravel racing, for the most part, is openly seeking to distance itself from this mantra. Of course, technology and aerodynamic gains seep in here and there (we’re cyclists after all) but stakeholders are keen to protect the ‘spirit of gravel’, an ethos that encourages riders of any age or level to get involved.

The World Series, which offers riders a chance to qualify for the Worlds, is open to professionals and amateurs alike, with rounds held across four continents in each of the two years it has run so far - a much broader spread than the UCI’s Cyclo-cross World Cup, which currently only ventures out of Europe when it heads to the US.

Despite several differences between the road and gravel racing worlds, plenty of pros have headed off the beaten track and dabbled in gravel racing. 

visited the Veneto region of Italy last month – which has played host to the first two editions of the UCI Gravel World Championships – to understand why and discover how much more gravel racing has to offer.

, a race not yet sanctioned by the UCI, portrayed a rather laidback scene despite several WorldTour and ProTeam squads in attendance. Perhaps benefitting from its timing during the last week of the road season, riders were mingling, pointing and prodding at one another’s bike set-ups, which varied drastically, as techno music boomed from nearby speakers.

Five tech highlights from Serenissima Gravel

“It's something different but quite similar to road racing. It mixes things up and makes it fun for everyone at the end of the season, that's why it's so popular even now,” admitted the eventual winner on the day, Florian Vermeersch.

Vermeersch had just finished runner-up in the second edition of the World Championships but, despite the high-profile event, the Lotto Dstny rider found his preparation to be in stark contrast to how he gears up for road races. 

“I think road riders like the relaxed side of gravel, especially at the end of the season. It's still a high-level race but it makes it more relaxing.

“The week leading into the Gravel World Championships was super relaxing for me and I never had the feeling that I was going into the Worlds. I was just relaxing and enjoying everything in the moment. That’s what makes it nice for me.”

Florian Vermeersch’s Ridley Kanzo Fast: Gravel World Championships Pro Bike

Yet for all of the 2021 Paris-Roubaix runner-up’s light-touch preparation for gravel racing, other road pros view the discipline from another completely different angle. 

“We were talking in the bus beforehand and are more nervous now than normally at a [road] race because we don’t know what we’ll meet out there. It's also exciting, the main thing we said on the bus was ‘don’t crash today’,” revealed Uno-X’s Torstein Træen.

The uncertain and ‘expect the unexpected’ style of racing that gravel provides could be down to its relative novelty within pro cycling but also because very few road races, bar some cobbled Classics like Paris-Roubaix, offer such unpredictability.

Træen’s teammate Fredrik Dversnes, who came third on the day at Serenissima Gravel, doubled down on the idea that one of gravel racing’s biggest selling points to both fans and riders is its chaotic nature, with very few road events able to offer the same type of plot.

“I think for sure there are road races like this but you don’t see them that often. [In] a race like today, it's fucking cool, when guy after guy gets exhausted and falls off [the back of the bunch], especially if you are one of the strongest.”

The Norwegian continued: “Anything can happen in these races. They’re not predictable at all. No one controls the race, there are constant attacks and no one really knows. They are the strongest guys there at the end.”

But why are so many road pros, including 

 – who won on his gravel debut back in August – seeking this change of scenery? 

stance on rules and technology. For the World Championships, any dropped-bar bike is allowed, so long as it weighs at least 6.8kg. There are no rules around tyre width or bar width, nor for that matter any regulation on sock height.

Gianni Vermeersch, the inaugural Gravel World Champion from 2022, believes riders are attracted to the freedom they’re granted at gravel races. 

“That’s actually the nice thing about gravel, you saw it at the Worlds. Some riders are going with a road bike with quite wide tyres which is possible.

“I think they don’t have to make too many laws or rules, let the riders choose the best option that they want to race, if they want to race with road tyres, just let them do it. It's a nice part of the gravel scene, the tactics and technology,” the Belgian added.

The Serenissima Gravel race, perhaps given its lack of UCI status, saw some riders tackle the event on set-ups that wouldn’t look out of place on the road, while others used gravel bikes, cyclo-cross frames, and just about anything in between.

Dversnes found this aspect of the race fascinating, adding: “I was wondering about the choice of some teams to go with the road bike, that was cool from them.” 

His Uno-X team all used bikes that have spent more time on the gravel tracks of Scandinavia during the winter than they have been pedalled in anger, but does it matter? The 26-year-old thinks not.

“If you looked at my bike, compared to the other two guys in front of me you’d see some significant differences. That says a lot about how much effort we put into this though, this was more just fun for us, we don’t top-spec our bikes for this race but it definitely proves that it works good enough. That [bike] will go back home with me after this race and do the winter training with me in Norway.”

Gravel racing offers road pros a laidback and free-spirited alternative to the often formulaic and data-driven WorldTour environment. So could it soon overtake cyclo-cross as the go-to choice for those European pros seeking something competitive during the off-season? Or could it be that the two work together in perfect harmony?

The jury seems to still be out on this topic.

As has been the theme, gravel’s accessibility stands up well when compared to ‘cross, something Træen was quick to point out. 

“Cyclo-cross is more technical. Gravel you can do more easily than cyclo-cross but cross’ requires a lot of equipment, you need to have the right tyres for the right courses,” explained the Norwegian.

This ease and gravel’s aforementioned laidback approach to rules and the technology used make it an attractive proposition - especially against cyclo-cross where CX-specific bikes are the norm. However, Træen does underline cyclo-cross’s uniqueness in that it’s technical and separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to bike handling.

Florian Vermeersch doubled down on this point, adding: “Cyclo-cross is more specific, it's much more about technique and intervals whereas gravel racing is longer endurance, it's also a bit about technique but less than in cyclo-cross.”

However, there’s no denying that gravel racing has something that cyclo-cross could only dream of: a global appeal. 

Yes, the US CX scene has a strong number of hardcore supporters, with a steady stream of races, whether that be in the shape of amateur events or World Cup rounds, the occasional World Championships or the US CX series. Despite this, cyclo-cross was made and has predominantly remained in northern Europe where the weather is conducive for spills and thrills. Meanwhile, gravel already has lofty global ambitions. 

After two Worlds hosted in Veneto, the 2024 edition will, ironically, be hosted in the cyclo-cross heartland of Flanders before heading to France (twice), Australia and Saudi Arabia in the following four years. That’s in stark contrast to the ‘cross Worlds which only venture out of their native territories to the Czech Republic throughout the next four editions.

Cyclo-cross’ struggle to infiltrate further than northern Europe and the US is something that Gianni Vermeersch doesn’t see as such an issue for gravel racing when he admits: “In Belgium, we’ve tried already for cyclo-cross to become more popular but it's really difficult and I think now with gravel they’ve found the perfect combination between cyclo-cross and road cycling.”

Having spent most winters during his career riding ‘cross, the Alpecin-Deceuninck man believes the diversity of start lists at gravel races is something that will help its worldwide appeal that CX can sometimes lack.

“Gravel speaks to a lot of nationalities. We’ve been trying for a long time in cyclo-cross but it always stays within Belgium and the Netherlands. With my roommate Quinten [Hermans] we were looking through the top 50 of the Gravel World Championships and every country is there which is the good thing about it."

The Belgian even went to the extent of suggesting that gravel racing has the potential to earn a spot on the most global stage of them all, the Olympic Games.

“Maybe in the future to get an Olympic sport [there is a] much better [chance] for gravel cycling. I think gravel cycling has the possibility to get something Olympic which was not possible with cyclo-cross because it's in the winter.”

Yet for all the demand to see gravel racing grow, some, including Florian Vermeersch, believe gravel racing’s charm lies in its untouched nature. It’s rough and ready, not bogged down by rules or requirements. The bigger the platform that it gets, the more at risk it could be of sterilisation.

“It certainly has the potential I think but I don’t know if it would be very good for gravel if it became an Olympic sport. I’m a believer in the spirit of gravel where everyone from 19 to 75 can participate in gravel events or even the World Gravel Series, and I think it should stay that way. That’s what makes it so nice,” he affirmed.

The Belgian's caution is understandable. To take a leaf from the 'spirit of gravel', it could be argued that a global reach isn't the only parameter that determines whether gravel racing and cyclo-cross are classed as successful. The fact that road riders have more opportunities to explore other disciplines and test themselves in different ways should, in itself, be considered a positive.

Breakaway king Thomas De Gendt confirms 2024 will be his final season

Thomas De Gendt in action during the Vuelta a España

) has announced that he will retire from professional cycling at the end of 2024.

“2024 will be the start of my 16th and final season as a pro. My big goals are a 6th stage win in Volta Catalunya and a 2nd stage win in Vuelta a Espana. But above all, enjoying every race I will do in my final year,” he wrote on social media.

De Gendt has enjoyed a long and distinguished career, finishing on the podium of a Grand Tour and collecting stage wins in the 

. During his career he almost singlehandedly refined the art of the breakaway specialist, leading to a wave of riders replicating his style of racing. 

“It’s not really sad news and it would have come sooner or later. Now is just the right moment to make it the final season instead of going for another contract,” De Gendt told 

“It’s the right time to stop and I’ll be 38 at the end of my current contract. That’s a nice age to retire. If I could really choose I would stop in 2025 at the Giro when they finish on the Stelvio but to be honest I don’t I have a chance of getting a contract for that season. The kids are getting older too, and they’re starting to complain about me being away from home for so many weeks. It’s good to have a final season and then we’ll see.”

The end of 2024 is still over a year away, and if De Gendt does have a winning season in 2024 there is still the smallest of chances that he could change his mind. No doubt that despite his advancing years there would be interest from several WorldTours teams should he decide to push his career for an additional campaign.

“I can always change my mind if I get the best legs again. Then I could postpone it for another year but it’s quite definite. My highlights were the wins of course, winning in a Grand Tour was always a dream and I did that five times, so that’s a nice accomplishment. I’ve not won that many races but I’ve had a nice career,” he told 

“It’s still my goal to win a race, it’s just getting that much harder. In 2022 I could still win in the Giro, so I’m confident that I can still be competitive.”

Retiring from the pro world would end a major chapter for De Gendt, Belgian cycling and the peloton as a whole. De Gendt turned pro with Unibet in 2006 but really announced himself on the global stage at the Giro d’Italia in 2012 with Vacansoleil-DCM. On an epic day of racing the Belgian broke clear from the main field and soloed to an emphatic win on the Stelvio. The stage win catapulted De Gendt onto the podium, finishing third overall in Milan.

After the Giro the Belgian morphed his career into a breakaway specialist, picking up stage wins in multiple races, while also devoting himself to his teammates as a loyal super domestique. He won stages in virtually every WorldTour stage race, and picked up the KoM jersey in the 2017 Vuelta a España.

“Maybe I even motivated other riders to do the same, and showed them that you don’t always have to wait in the bunch for the end of the race. I wish that the Pogačars and Evenepoels didn’t do the same, because that’s made it harder to win races but maybe I showed some young guys how to win a race even if you’re not the best at climbing or sprinting,” he told 

“I don’t know what’s next so I’m accepting job offers for 2025.”

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Name	Age	UCI Career Wins	UCI Points
Maxim Van Gils	24	5	2447
Arnaud De Lie	22	27	2288
Florian Vermeersch	25	2	1143
Lennert Van Eetvelt	22	11	1082
Andreas Kron	25	6	957

Lotto Dstny

Lotto Dstny

The Team

Top Lotto Dstny Stories

Luke Plapp and Caleb Ewan to lead Jayco AlUla at Tour Down Under

Fewer rules, more fun: How the pro peloton is embracing gravel racing

Breakaway king Thomas De Gendt confirms 2024 will be his final season

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