Even before closing out his 18-year professional road career in 2023, Greg van Avermaet (Belgium) began to diversity his athletic pursuits, for his love of sports. He had already distinguished himself at the 2016 Olympic Games with the gold medal in the road race and a year later he captured wins at both Paris-Roubaix and Gent-Wevelgem. How do you top that?
Van Avermaet began to vary his programme in 2022 by competing in the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships and finished fourth, one second off the podium behind Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands). Then he took up a full gravel calendar this year and mixed in a 70.3 Ironman, which now has him qualified for the 70.3 Ironman World Championships in 2025.
"I love sports. I'm lucky that I'm still in good shape. You know, it takes me four weeks to train for a triathlon to be on a decent level. So that's also the cool part, if you can keep yourself busy with riding your bike, the shape is not going down that much. And it's cool to do that kind of events where you just can find some freedom and some good feelings," Van Avermaet told Cyclingnews during his appearance Friday at a pop-up store in Leuven for brands including BMC and Pirelli.
"I think it's pretty special, because we have, of course, a lot of Belgians going to start. But it's not going to be like in a real team. I think it's quite an individual sport. It's also not that it's created by the federation, where in the road they have to pick eight or nine guys a team. So I think here it's more free.
"Last time, I was still in big shape, you know, I was still a professional rider. Now is a little bit different. I'm still riding my bike a lot, but, you don't live the professional life anymore, which is also nice."
In 2024, his first year away from the WorldTour and road racing, the 39-year-old Belgian went all-in for gravel, earning seven top 10s in eight major events, including third at Falling Leaves Lahti, fourth at 3 Rides Gravel and seventh at Unbound Gravel 200. With this year's UCI Gravel World Championships on his home turf, he wants to have a good ride.
"I will try to do my best. I have, of course, the skills and the knowledge how to do it, but sometimes the legs don't respond that good anymore to what you want. But I think I have a decent level. It's not so far away from home. And then I was also thinking, why not? Why not try.
"Winning this kind of stuff, I think that will be out of reach. I think top 15, top 20, on this parcours, I will be happy. So we will see. I'm still enjoying it [racing] but the level, of course, is not the same anymore."
When talking about how many contenders were part of the 292 elite men on the start for Sunday's 182km contest, Van Avermaet wanted to pick a Belgian teammate, but defaulted to one of the hottest riders in the peloton who is no longer in doubt to start, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel.
"If you have to pick one name where you have to put your money on, I think probably it will be Mathieu [van der Poel]. I think if you see his level from last week on a parcours that maybe is not the best for him, then I think you can expect that he gonna be the winner on Sunday," Van Avermaet said with a light laugh.
"So I think that guy has the skills, has the legs, and has the knowledge of [equipment]. I like it that he's here, it's good for the event. I kind of like it when those guys are interested to do this kind of stuff."
Van der Poel will have a Classics-styled course on which to compete for Worlds title on gravel to add to the ones he has in cyclocross and road. Van Avermaet like the course, even though he said it could have been designed with more climbs.
"I like it, yeah, I think it's Belgium, you cannot change it. We have punchy climbs, not too much. We have a lot of buildings, and the small parts of nature we have are quite protected, especially in Flanders. There are quite some corners also. So I think grading this parcours is quite hard," he confirmed.
"It's kind of a Classics style, like Tour of Flanders. It's that kind of parcours. I think if they really wanted to make it a lot harder, we have a few more climbs, but it's nice, a good combination.
"It's this kind of gravel, the roads are not wide, you have to be in front. And this will make the race hard. If you're too far [behind], you have this kind of accordion that you're playing, and it's hard to catch up with the first guys. And that will make the race very hard I think."
Triathlon Worlds
Other sports adventures have led Van Avermaet back to his roots as a youth with swimming and running, and he tried a triathlon in 2023 "just for fun". This year a friend challenged him to compete in a half Ironman, so Van Avermaet first checked his gravel programme to see if the timing worked. It did.
He competed at the 70.3 Ironman Knokke-Heist alongside former road pros Jelle Wallays (Cofidis) and Sven Vanthourenhout, who has been the national cycling coach for Belgium. Van Avermaet finished 13th overall, third in his category (M35-39) and five spots ahead of Wallays while Vanthourenhout was seventh in his category (M40-44).
"There was one, of course, in Belgium, and I said, yeah, why not try? I only starting cycling when I was 18 years old, so I have a background as a football player, but I was also swimming a bit, and I was running. So in the end, it doesn't cost me too much energy to switch."
He admitted he really enjoyed it because it was not only different, but there were lower expectations from cycling, where even "with gravel people expect you're gonna win, but it's not always that easy". Van Avermaet qualified for the 70.3 Ironman World Championship in Spain next year.
"But in triathlon, people really appreciate if you can do the three sports, and then it was a good experience to prepare myself do different kind of training. And I qualified for Worlds next year. So I will be there also another one."
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