<\/p>\n
Nutrition, Lampaert says, is another area that has completely changed. Reflecting on his 2014 victory at the Arnhem\u2013Veenendaal Classic, he recalled how little attention was paid to diet in his early days. \u201cNow every team travels with their own chef and food is weighed. But at Topsport Vlaanderen [his team that year], we still just ate the hotel menu.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the next day, he paid the price. \u201cDuring the race, I had stomach problems. Back then, no one really talked about nutrition, except that you should eat one energy bar and one gel per hour. When I woke up the next day, I had stomach pain from all that cream. After one hour of racing, I dropped back to the team car and told our director Hans De Clercq: \u2018My stomach is completely blocked. You can\u2019t count on me today.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
De Clercq\u2019s response was blunt and unforgettable. \u201cHe said: \u2018Let a few farts out and it will get better.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Lampaert followed the advice quite literally, and he does not seem to regret.\u00a0\u201cI did as he said and let go\u2026 It actually helped. I won solo, it was my first professional victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cleanest period of cycling\u201d<\/p>\n
In Forza Lampaert, the rider avoids discussing doping scandals directly, but he insists his career has taken place in an era defined by strict control and transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been part of teams that win a lot but enforce zero tolerance,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I became a professional, the biological passport and no-needle policy were already in place. I am convinced that I\u2019m living through the cleanest period of cycling. You can see that in the level of performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also described how results today depend more on form and physical condition than on anything else. \u201cWhen I had a good day, I could compete for victory. When I felt less good, I couldn\u2019t. That\u2019s logical. There have been performances where people thought, \u2018how is that possible?\u2019 But I think \u2014 maybe na\u00efvely \u2014 that it\u2019s just a fantastic athlete on a fantastic day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nutrition, Lampaert says, is another area that has completely changed. Reflecting on his 2014 victory at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-227649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}