Campenaerts prepares for the Tour one month after crash: "Vingegaard has started scouting stages"

Campenaerts crashed in the second stage of the Basque stage race. He did reach the finish line but did not line up for stage three. The result of the crash: a broken shoulder. No Ardennes classics for the Belgian, who had to stay home for a while. But now he is already back training at altitude, albeit on rollers. "Fortunately, I quite enjoy it," he tells Sporza from the Sierra Nevada. "Tiesj Benoot thinks I'm crazy. He says he wouldn't have cycled for three weeks. Tiesj thinks riding on rollers is a waste of time."

But cycling outdoors is, of course, the best thing there is. "I'm starting to get restless, though," Campenaerts admitted at the time. "Especially here on the mountain, where I'm the only Tour rider for now, apart from Tadej Pogacar." On Friday, part of the Tour team will join the Belgian, and he can hit the road immediately. "I could have done that two weeks ago, but the team prefers not to take any risks."

The 33-year-old time trialist knows that all too well. "A pro rarely crashes in training, but imagine if I was exhausted at the end of an interval training session and crashed at a traffic light because I couldn't get out of my click pedals. That would be very amateurish." But he wants to emphasize that, in terms of physical abilities, he is completely ready to return to the road. “I have complete control over my bike. The bone has healed nicely, and I can put pressure on it again, pull hard on the handlebars, and stand up straight on the pedals."

Other movements, apart from gripping the handlebars, are still more difficult. "Taking a coffee mug off the shelf is still difficult with my right arm," laughs the former rider for Lotto Soudal, among others. "I really have to concentrate. But it'll all be fine. I'm doing exercises to regain full mobility in my shoulder quickly."

Campenaerts was supposed to be an essential asset for Visma | Lease a Bike in the Ardennes, but his injury prevented that. "It's a bummer that I couldn't ride the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but every downside has its upside," he says, looking ahead positively because he has now been able to prepare even more thoroughly for the Tour de France. "I went to altitude training a week earlier to produce extra hemoglobin (the protein that transports oxygen, ed.)."

Campenaerts will assist Jonas Vingegaard during the Tour. After a long period of absence, the Dane has spoken out again. All eyes are on La Grande Boucle, where he is aiming for his third Tour victory. Campenaerts, who is going to the Tour partly because he has the same bike size as Vingegaard, sees that his team leader is fully focused. "He has already started doing some recon rides, but we don't really talk about that much. We talk more about the kids. He is also a dad, and that creates a bond."