It’s hard to imagine when talking to a beaming Victor Campenaerts in Saitama at the end of the 2024 season that this was a season of intense lows as well as intense highs.
The 33-year-old was ending the year as one of the key riders at the Tour de France showcase criterium in Japan. With a stage win at the French Grand Tour to look back on, his girlfriend and new son by his side as well as the security of a three-year contract with one of the world’s top teams – Visma-Lease a Bike – in hand, Campenaerts has a lot to be happy with. Just months before, however, the rider was far from the current picture of contentment. Then the Lotto-Dstny rider had faced the possibility that his career was crumbling right at the point where he’d put all his chips on the table.
"I was not really satisfied with my opening Classics," Campenaerts told Cyclingnews as he looked back on the early season challenges during this contract year. "And then after that, I also was struggling a bit with the fact that suddenly I was not too certain anymore about my future in cycling.
"The team that I was riding for, and verbally we [had] more or less agreed in January, but suddenly it seemed like it would be difficult to stay in Lotto so it gave me a bit of uncertainty."
That uncertainty also came at a time when he and his partner least needed it. Campenaerts and his girlfriend Nel had made some decisions as they planned their future, understanding that it would be difficult to be the parents they hoped to be and also pursue their current careers, given the intense demands of professional cycling and building up a successful pharmacy. They had a choice to make, and given that "you can not postpone a cycling career" that choice was for Campenaerts to continue with cycling at this point and then later the focus would shift.
"We were very happy that everything went smooth and she was pregnant," said Campenaerts "But of course, if I had not have been able to re-sign a contract, I would have been very disappointed, because we would have made a crucial mistake – then we should have chosen her career."
It was with these thoughts circling after the Classics that Campenaerts headed to Sierra Nevada to train at altitude as he determinedly prepared for the next big goal of the season, the Tour de France.
"It was a bit of a struggle and also it was not so easy for my girlfriend. She was pregnant but I needed more care than her because I was mentally struggling a bit, and she was like isolated on the top of Sierra Nevada together with me."
Though Campenaerts may have started his journey on a low, Sierra Nevada proved to be a turning point because on Sierra Nevada the Belgian made contact with a key member of his former team, Visma-Lease a Bike.
From misaligned goals to the perfect fit
Campenaerts had ridden for the team, known as LottoNL-Jumbo at the time, in 2016 and 2017, however back then the goals of the two parties didn't necessarily align.
"I was younger than I am now and I was full of ambitions, let's say mostly personal ambitions, and I just didn't fit in with the team vision," said Campenaerts, who was in his mid-20s while racing with the Dutch outfit.
The team was focused on what they could achieve with Primož Roglič and, at that time, also Steven Kruijswijk.
"It was a higher ambition than my personal ambition so it was not a match at that moment," said Campenaerts. "They just said it's better for you to go to a team where you can strive for your own ambition and I totally agreed. So that's what I did. I went for personal success and I achieved, let's say, some personal success – success I'm very proud of."
Among the highlights are taking – and holding for three years – the UCI Hour Record, 12 UCI road wins including a Giro d'Italia stage and, after his efforts in July, a Tour de France stage victory.
"I'm now very satisfied and maybe a bit saturated with personal success and I have one big goal left in my career, and that is winning the Tour de France on the team, being in a successful team," said Campenaerts. "I saw the match with Visma was really good."
Visma agreed and Campenaerts soon signed a new contract, running right through the next three seasons.
"Re-signing with Visma gave me a really big boost," said Campenaerts.
The tide had turned.
Euphoria
Campenaerts continued the work in Sierra Nevada with a little more certainty now. He came down from altitude to race the Loops of Mayenne but, with the support of his team, was skipping the usual lead in races so he could be sure to be present for the arrival of his son. There could be no doubting, however, the continued commitment to preparation as he targeted a Tour de France stage win. The rider and his girlfriend made Sierra Nevada home for nine weeks, his son born two weeks before they left.
"Being there on the Sierra Nevada with our son was quite incredible," said Campenaerts.
"Cyclists refer to the fact that if you are in love, you get a boost, you're just stronger. But if you have a have a kid it's something on a whole different level," said the Belgian cyclist, pausing for a moment to consider the best way to articulate that deeply personal phenomena in English.
"I couldn't get fatigued," said Campenaerts. "I had such a big training week the week after our son was born, and it was no problem at all. I did hours and hours and hours on the bike, and I came back home and I wanted to change diapers and help as much as possible.
"It was no problem to do all the training loads, and I profited from that also in the Tour de France."
That hard-earned win came on stage 18, when Campenaerts outsprinted his break companions Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) to tick off one of the biggest goals in cycling, a Tour de France stage win.
There could be no doubt how much the victory meant, when an emotional Campenaerts called his girlfriend – who he described as the "hero in this story" – moments after crossing the line.
"With the combination of just being still so euphoric, at becoming a dad, maybe also still a bit euphoric because of the Visma signing and then winning the Tour de France stage – it was both professionally and personally such a highlight in my career and life."
With that win, Campenaerts secured one last big personal ambition in cycling, though that doesn't mean his hunger to achieve at the highest level has waned – just that the nature of the goals he is focussed on has altered.
"I'm still full of joy of cycling," said Campenaerts. "I also feel that physically, I'm still at the prime of my career."
Campenaerts, however, is also clearly at a stage where he is ready to embrace a role where the successes don't show up on his results sheet, but someone else's instead. "I want to be a domestique in a successful team in the biggest races," said Campenaerts.
And the biggest race of all is, of course the Tour de France, where he hopes to utilise the skill of "drilling the tempo in the peloton" that he says has always been a pursuit that suited him physically, even if earlier in his career he had opted for other opportunities that would allow him to win in his own right.
"Now I'm saturated by personal success I can do, I think what I can do best and go for this final ambition of winning the Tour de France with the team.”
