Bjorg Lambrecht died after crashing on stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne between Chorzów and Zabrze on Monday. The 22-year-old Belgian was taken by ambulance to hospital in nearby Rybnik but his injuries were such that he passed away during an operation to try to save his life.
Lambrecht was in only his second year as a professional, enjoying a second season at WorldTour level with Belgian team Lotto Soudal. He already had one professional win under his belt – a stage of the Tour des Fjords, in Norway, in 2018 – but was widely considered to be one of Belgium's future stars of the sport, having finished second to recent Tour de France winner Egan Bernal at the 2017 Tour de l'Avenir and fourth at this year's Flèche Wallonne.
Lambrecht was born in Ghent, Belgium, on April 2, 1997, and grew up as a huge fan of the one-day Classics, many of which took place on his doorstep. The young Lambrecht was also a big fan of fellow Flandrian Tom Boonen, who won Paris-Roubaix four times and the Tour of Flanders on three occasions, and, according to L'Equipe, Lambrecht would wear the QuickStep jersey of his hero to bed as pyjamas.
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In 2015, Lambrecht won the junior road-race title at the Belgian national championships, and went on to ride for the Lotto Soudal U23 development team for the 2016 and 2017 seasons, winning a stage, the overall and all the other classification jerseys at the Ronde de l'Isard stage race in 2016.
A step-up to the WorldTour
Lotto Soudal secured Lambrecht's signature for their senior team for the 2018 season following a number of further excellent results by the Belgian in 2017, including second place overall at the Tour de l'Avenir behind Bernal and victory at the under-23 version of Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Along with Deceuninck-QuickStep's Remco Evenepoel, who won the Clasica San Sebastian at the start of August, Lambrecht was part of what was set to be a very bright future for Belgian cycling, with such climbing abilities relatively rare in a nation more used to bringing through 'Classics hard-men' that can perform on the cobblestones of Flanders and Roubaix.
An extremely impressive season
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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