The evergreen Belgian from Aalst returns to the Tour de France after a six-year absence, chosen for his positioning nous and his years of experience piloting sprinters. In the team since 2019 — through all four of its name changes — 'TVA' is the road captain of NSN's sprint unit, the man who reads the wind and calls the moves in Girmay's train. At 36, he shares the honour of oldest rider on the squad with George Bennett.
Palmarès
- Bronze, U23 World Championships road race (2012)
- Cholet-Pays de Loire winner (2014)
- Binche–Chimay–Binche winner (2019)
- Mountains classification, Arctic Race of Norway (2016)
- 98th, Tour de France (2020)
Cut-out factHis last Tour de France was in 2020 — the pandemic-delayed September edition — making this July return six years in the making.
The squad
Riding the 2026 Tour with Biniam Girmay, Lewis Askey, George Bennett, Marco Frigo, Matis Louvel, Krists Neilands, Jake Stewart — see the full NSN Cycling team page.
Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick, license: CC BY-SA 3.0.
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