Cycling. INTERVIEW – Stéphane Heulot: “Maxime Van Gils… I felt him coming from afar”

“I do not agree with this type of phenomenon”

How did you experience the Maxim Van Gils affair?

There wasn't much to do. There are several points. The first is that Belgian law is very permissive so, from a legal point of view, we could obviously take action, now it is not our values ​​to block a runner for seven to eight months either. He is a runner who gave us a lot. He's been on the team for seven years, and it was his choice, but it was late. I do not agree with this type of phenomenon but I think we will have to get used to it, facing these teams who do not respect contracts. It's complicated, we had a vision for the next three years with Maxim, Lennert Van Eetvelt and Arnaud De Lie, it also forced us to make choices in relation to riders who did not stay. What's a shame is that this happens in November. Behind it, it’s complicated to guarantee our sponsors a signed project.

Were you surprised by what happened?

Let's say that after the Tour, Maxim contacted me to tell me that he had changed agents in the person of Alex Carera, so I admit that I felt it coming from afar…

And in 2025, there is the Jarno Widar case

It's something else. Obviously, yes. The case presents itself today, we are working on it but what is certain is that we are not going to let it happen every time, and then we will probably show our teeth.

“There is such a difference between budgets”

Is Cycling becoming like football?

Yes. Now there are laws that force us to do this. A Belgian law and a European law that works in football. There is no reason why this should not extend to cycling. There is so much difference between the budgets of the biggest teams and the others… It's true that we can't cope. Agents are something that has appeared massively in the last ten years. Now, we must not put everyone in the same basket. There are people who do their job very well and others who have a little less values ​​and respect for contracts, even if behind that they put forward the will of the rider. The problem is often around money.

Money, the sinews of war?

We will have to legislate all of this very quickly at the UCI level for the simple reason that today, if there are four or five teams bringing together all the best riders in the world, we will lose interest. Cycling sport is a fight, it's always very complicated to only see the same jerseys in front. Obviously, it’s the money that makes the difference. We are managing to do well, we have been in the top 10 for two years, now with a budget closer to 15 million than 20, this inevitably leads us to think about all the details. We are attacking our heart, development, is the axis of the team, and we realize that today teams do not hesitate to immediately attack our young prodigies.

Salary cap, the solution?

I don't know if this is really the solution. We have already discussed it with the UCI and even with the IGCP. The problem is that there will always be a way to avoid respecting this salary cap. By money directly given to runners via sponsors, and I don't think this will be controllable. I don't have the solution myself, the budget-cap could be one, there are other proposals on the table, but once again we have to see what can be feasible and how this can be diverted by some.

Less and less middle class in cycling teams… like society?

Yes of course. Afterwards, I don't consider myself poor with such a budget, which remains substantial. But it's true that even if it's part of the evolution of cycling, it's not a global situation, it's limited to a minority in the WorldTour. It is obvious that today we are poor, tomorrow we will be very rich. We just have to stay the course of values ​​and respect. Some have changed their tune from the moment they had budgets that resembled bottomless pits. It's not consistent, and cycling will lose a lot of interest.

“We are going to skip the Giro again”

The 2025 Lotto Dstny season… how do we feel about it despite certain departures?

It's a disappointment to lose Maxim, when we re-signed in February, I had no idea he could score like that. I also think that having a reading on these next three years put him in a relatively calm mental state and so it was a big season for him, but again, we have 11 riders who won, and he There are great promises coming with Alec Segaert, who is still at school, I remind you. We are rethinking our plans but once again we will try to turn this constraint into an opportunity. It's a challenge, we know that we can suffer more than in the last two years, but I refuse to get into this pattern of thoughts. For us, the objective is to maintain this position despite these end-of-year inconveniences.

You have reviewed your plans… What are these plans?

The advantage is that we still have the choice of our calendar by being a ProTeam. The idea is really to adapt the program to our workforce. There will only be 25 of us next year, there were 28 of us this year, with once again 4 riders coming from our development team. Obviously, the schedule is a little reduced and adapted to our capacities. We are going to skip the Giro again, even if I had this desire at the start of the year to be able to begin the return to the WorldTour by trying to string together the three Grand Tours.

So Tour and Vuelta in 2025… We saw great things from Arnaud De Lie on the Tour, the same in 2025 despite a playing field not very conducive to sprinters?

Arnaud De Lie is not a pure sprinter so I want to say that the more bumpy it is, the better. Obviously, I'm talking about arrival, not in the mountains. Things were done in such a way that it broke up the peloton a little, so I think that Arnaud is one of the sprinters capable of overcoming these difficulties. We also have Lennert Van Eetvelt, who we hope will be spared in 2025 from all the injuries he has had, because despite that, he still won two WorldTour stage races this year. He will make his debut in the Tour de France, to aim for the general classification, I don't know, surely more to discover and try to find the targeted stages.

Patrick Lefevere… it's a monument

What is the idea for the classics?

Always the wish and the objective of getting one, or a semi-classic. We have potential for this. We didn't get very far last year on the Nieuwsblad, we did great things with Florian Vermeersch, but he is also leaving us. It was a bit of a two-headed snake on the classics with Arnaud, there, it's true that we're going to find ourselves a bit orphaned by Florian, even if he didn't help us at all this year since he's His femur was broken in February. But behind, I see Cédric Beullens, Jenno Berckmoes, Brent Van Moer who like the classics so we will be there.

Is cycling detached from human values?

I don't know. I have always designed the bike this way. There is a mechanical part, but a rider in a favorable environment will perform much better than the same rider who finds himself in a team where he does not feel considered and appreciated. The same runner will perform at 75-80%, whereas he could be at 110% in another environment.

Managers leave like Lefevere, others arrive like Serieys, how do you see all this?

I am convinced that Patrick will not disappear completely since he will remain on the team's supervisory board. But I want to say that this is life. It's true that Patrick, in Belgium, is a monument and in other countries too, I believe. His track record is phenomenal. We can't realize what he did. On certain points, he can be an example for many.

“Being a Belgian team is not always easy…”

This is your third year at the helm of Lotto Dstny, how is it going?

I am not alone in this “success story”, because we are at 130% of what we can do. Once again, compared to the limited means and the means of others, it is complicated. But I don't know a manager who would say it's a simple job. I usually say that when I only have one problem a day, it's a good day. We learn to live with that, we are always looking for a solution and it works. Being a Belgian team is not always easy because we have a Flemish press which is very aggressive. They have a form of ethics that suits them, in the sense that they tend to say things that are not verified. It's special, in the same country, we have the French-speaking part who operate more in the French way on that side…

Do these criticisms affect you personally?

Less and less in the sense that I know where it comes from and that would be giving too much importance to what doesn't have any. We are going to say that we have much less things like that on Patrick Lefevere or on Jean-François Bourlard… Why Lotto? I don't have the answer, but we do our job, that's the most important thing for me.

How could the general manager of Lotto Dstny be a fulfilled man?

First of all, let us conclude all the good contacts we have. Finding the second name for the team, I think it's on the right track but the economic situation is not easy. We will start the season with only Lotto in the name but to approach the year 2026, when we should return to the WorldTour, it is important that we can expand our squad. It's urgent. On a sporting level, this would mean that everyone takes a step forward. We won 25 races this year, I don't want to set targets on that. Cycling is not an exact science, we will have to show resilience, we will apply the same instructions.