Greg Van Avermaet was the cobbled Classics rider of the year. With wins in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix, he almost achieved a clean sweep – only the Tour of Flanders, where he was second, eluded him. Procycling met him at home to discuss what has been his best season ever, and to talk about his big targets for next year.
Dendermonde, a quiet Belgian town on the Schelde river located in the triangle formed by Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium’s three biggest cities, is basking in an unseasonal burst of late autumn sunshine, the last warmth of the year. The blue sky and pleasant temperatures are quite un-Flandrian.
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Dendermonde is home to Greg Van Avermaet, Olympic gold medallist, WorldTour champion, monument winner, achiever of top 10s and local boy – he was born in Lokeren, the next town over. We’re sitting in Van Avermaet’s garden, which has an open and expansive view on to the cultivated fields of the East Flandrian plain – there’s no real hill between here and the North Sea 80 kilometres away. “I don’t like it too much here,” Van Avermaet says, laughing. “For training it’s terrible – it’s flat, and the weather is not really good, but it always feels nice to come home. I could live somewhere else, but this will always be my home.”
He adds: “I think I’m really Belgian.”
Van Avermaet’s house, midway through a renovation which has taken a while longer than planned, is out of bounds, so we’re at a table in a broad expanse of grass which is being idly nibbled at by a robot lawnmower moving at random around the lawn. The mower, motorised and autonomous, sticks to our part of the garden, buzzing around our ankles. “He’s friendly. He always likes to be near people,” jokes Van Avermaet.
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