🎥 A touching moment: Campenaerts helps ex-teammate De Lie through a tough Giro

There was a heartwarming moment on Sunday during stage three of the Giro d'Italia: Victor Campenaerts spotted that Arnaud De Lie — his former teammate at Lotto — was in difficulty and decided to help his compatriot out. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider took a water bottle from De Lie, who is having a very difficult start to the race, to lighten his load on the climb. He then gave it back once the road levelled out. As for Lotto-Intermarché, they found reason for optimism in Lennert Van Eetvelt.

De Lie's build-up to the Giro d'Italia was already difficult before the race had even started. After winning the Famenne Ardenne Classic for a third time, the Belgian fell ill. He was far from the only one — many riders across several teams were struck down by a stomach bug after the roads in the Belgian classic were reportedly contaminated with cattle manure and agricultural debris, which was splashed up by the rain.

It made for a difficult start to the Giro. In the opening stage, he finished 21st, but his 155th-place the following day in stage two was a telling sign of just how much he was struggling. Stage three — the final and most demanding of the Bulgarian stages — only brought more of the same.

Enter Campenaerts. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider was a teammate of De Lie at Lotto from 2022 to 2024. Riding near the back of the peloton on Sunday, he spotted his former teammate in trouble. To spare De Lie some weight on the climb, Campenaerts took one of his water bottles. He then handed it back afterwards. A touching moment, right there at the tail end of the peloton.

Alongside De Lie, Lotto-Intermarché saw several other riders fall ill in the days before the Giro's start. Given that, it was genuinely good news that all eight of the Belgian team's riders who started in Bulgaria boarded the plane to Italy for the rest of the race. There was further cause for optimism in Lennert Van Eetvelt's performance in stage two, when he was able to follow an acceleration from Jonas Vingegaard.

Nevertheless, sporting director Kurt Van de Wouwer told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that the team's approach remains unchanged, even in the wake of other leaders such as Adam Yates withdrawing from the race. "We're sticking to our position: the general classification is not our ambition. We're taking this Giro stage by stage and targeting a stage win. Yes, a lot of GC contenders have already dropped out. But we don't want to put any pressure on ourselves. That could have a paralysing effect."