Arnaud De Lie\u2019s dream of winning on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es ended in heart-wrenching fashion Monday when he abandoned stage 3 of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n
The Belgian climbed into his Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 team car after a long battle with the time cut during Monday\u2019s grueling stage through the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es.<\/p>\n
It was an ugly end to the Tour de France for De Lie, and his second grand tour DNF in 3 months. The 24-year-old also abandoned the Giro d\u2019Italia on stage 4 in May.<\/p>\n
Persistent illness has shrunk De Lie\u2019s calendar of 42 grand tour stages to 7 and raised questions about his team\u2019s selection policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is of course a huge disappointment,\u201d De Lie told Het Laatste Nieuws<\/em> on Monday evening. \u201cI have been working towards the Tour for months and I dreamed of competing in the sprint stages.\u201d<\/p>\n The writing seemed to be on the wall before De Lie even started this Tour de France.<\/p>\n He showed up so sick with stomach issues that he was forced to miss the team presentation in Barcelona on Thursday.<\/p>\n He could barely hack the pace in the stage 1 team time trial 48 hours later, and finished dead last on stage 2.<\/p>\n \u201cThis stomach infection has severely weakened me,\u201d De Lie said Monday. \u201cI gave everything in the first two stages, but today I simply didn\u2019t have the legs to continue, certainly not in this extreme heat.<\/p>\n \u201cI told Baptiste [Veistroffer, teammate \u2013 ed] who stayed with me today to ride on alone,\u201d De Lie continued. \u201cOtherwise he wouldn\u2019t finish within the time limit.\u201d<\/p>\n De Lie was once touted as one of the most exciting new sprinters of pro cycling, but has been repeatedly derailed by sickness.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Bull of the Ardennes\u201d was diagnosed with Lyme disease in spring 2024 and has been battling persistent stomach complaints ever since.<\/p>\n Many suspected lingering symptoms of the bacterial infection caused De Lie\u2019s spluttering form in this year\u2019s cobblestone classics.<\/p>\n A case of gastroenteritis in May set him back even further.<\/p>\n De Lie was one of many riders who raced the mud-splattered Famenne Ardennes Classic who were later forced to abandon the Giro d\u2019Italia with a stomach infection.<\/p>\n Teams suspected that cow manure on the slick roads of the Famenne sprayed its way across De Lie and many others in the peloton.<\/p>\n De Lie\u2019s Tour de France abandon on Monday was a true tear-jerker.<\/p>\n The stocky Belgian was off the back early in the grippy 200km stage and struggling to keep pace with his supporting teammates.<\/p>\n Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 management eventually told De Lie\u2019s last support man, Veistroffer, to return to the bunch.<\/p>\n The palid sprinter was beyond salvation.<\/p>\n \u201cI rode at the front for more than 100 kilometers with Arnaud on my wheel. He couldn\u2019t take over a single meter,\u201d Veistroffer told Het Laatste Nieuws<\/em>. \u201cOn the climbs, he had to pedal at the same watts as me, and it just wasn\u2019t possble.\u201d<\/p>\n Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 said Monday that De Lie stepped off on the final climb of the day \u201cto protect his health.\u201d<\/p>\n However, many questioned whether De Lie should even have been selected for the Tour de France, let alone been given a pass to ride that far.<\/p>\n Team management insisted there was nothing in De Lie\u2019s blood markers that suggested he shouldn\u2019t be racing.<\/p>\n \u201cMedically speaking, there was absolutely no reason not to let him start,\u201d team manager Kurt van de Wouwer said Monday.<\/p>\n Pieter Vanspeybrouck \u2013 another DS at Lotto \u2013\u00a0said the intense heat was the final straw that broke the sickness-prone sprinter.<\/p>\n \u201cMinor ailments such as those stomach problems have been plaguing him all year. That\u2019s now combined with the heat. And that has a huge impact on his recovery,\u201d Vanspeybrouck told HLN<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have always supported Arnaud. Hats off to how he fought until the end.\u201d<\/p>\n What next for De Lie?<\/p>\n Surely things can only improve for him from here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/cow-dung-crisis-tour-de-france-dnf-de-lie-needs-luck\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2278753041.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated July 7, 2026 02:38AM Arnaud De Lie\u2019s dream of winning on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es ended in heart-wrenching fashion Monday when he abandoned stage 3 of the Tour de France. The Belgian climbed into his Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 team car after a long battle with the time cut during Monday\u2019s grueling stage through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2030878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2030878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2030878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2030878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2030878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Lyme disease, cow dung infection, Tour de France abandon<\/h2>\n
Team defends keeping De Lie in race<\/h2>\n
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