Lotto explains why the cycling world isn't fair: "Those three are on the same level as UAE riders"

Nikolas Maes begins his fourth year as team manager at Lotto. With name sponsor Dstny gone, the team saw riders heading to UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. Speaking with IDLProCycling.com, Maes responded to the statements of Groupama-FDJ manager Marc Madiot, who just a few weeks ago expressed fears about the cycling economy being out of balance. "It is also up to the UCI to provide a training fee for riders like Maxim Van Gils from our U23 team," Maes said.

Madiot already spoke up at the end of last year for Lotto, which lost the self-trained gold medalist Van Gils to the wealthy Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. We would like his opinion and experience about the significant capital differences between cycling teams from sports director Maes. "In Maxim's story, I understand he went to Red Bull. 'Obviously, you mostly need riders in a team, and they cost millions,' says Maes. 'To get the top riders in your team, you need twenty million euros. I think Madiot is particularly frustrated by that."

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Nikolas Maes rode the last four years for Lotto-Soudal

Lotto turned into development team: "We lose half of them within three years"

"Lennert Van Eetvelt and Arnaud De Lie, who are performing today, and Jarno Widar, who is rapidly improving, are of the same level as UAE riders,' Maes argues. 'If you have ten million to spare like UAE and buy ten riders with a million salary, you have a top team. But with that, they also kill a little bit of the competitiveness of the smaller teams. A salary cap has already been raised as an idea against that. That is difficult to implement but would not be bad for the sport. Without a salary cap, we are going to a league with four teams left to win."

The transfer policy of incoming riders at Lotto depends almost entirely on the development team. "We lost guys this winter, primarily Florian Vermeersch and Victor Campenaerts," Maes said. "They brought quality to the team that we needed. On the other hand, we continue to reap talent in our youth team. Widar and Aldo Taillieu, for example, have enormous potential—as Milan Donie. And now we've transferred Steffen De Schuyteneer, Robin Orins, and Joshua Giddings. Those are all riders I expect to play, perhaps with some limits, roles in our team fairly soon."

"Give those guys two to three years, and we'll have solid riders back in our base in no time," he continued positively. That changes quickly, however: "On the other hand, two or three years is a long way off, and then we risk losing talent again. It's a given in cycling today: if you don't have the cash to keep all those riders on board for five years, you risk losing your efforts."

According to Maes, what would help keep riders from the development team on board once they thrive? "It is up to the UCI to provide a training fee for riders like Van Gils," the Belgian is adamant. "Our development team is excellent, and we bring in a lot of talents, but we lost half of them within three years. That's a shame of the energy you put into it. That costs money and energy that we put not into our first team but into the development team. But we must do that too because our riders now are almost one hundred percent in-house talent."

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Lotto would have liked a training fee for Van Gils

Lotto urges UCI to intervene around performance drugs

Recruiting riders and keeping them on board is essential in the capital picture. But beyond that, there is also the performance part. "Madiot's Groupama-FDJ and Lotto are in the MPCC (The movement for credible cycling). They prohibit the use of ketones from being offered and encouraged from within the team. So, we and FDJ will never encourage ketone use. However, other teams outside the MPCC can purchase it and give it to riders. But to be honest, ketones will not be a big difference."

Lotto is performing well, according to the team manager, which can also be seen in the team ranking, where they are among the ten best teams. "I think first and foremost we have to try to perform well in our operation today, everything that includes performance. Optimize the level and put a level in your functioning that makes sure your functioning is good. Then Van Eetvelt, De Lie, and Widar, for example, will be convinced of the quality of your team. And then they also want to stay," Maes thinks.

"You need money to do everything, but if you are a little creative, you can bring the level of your team to a certain standard," Maes says. "Team Sky was the first team to work with nutritionists and start weighing and fine-tuning the nutrition. Then came Jumbo-Visma, which developed that nutrition story even better. Then that was another step difference. But now, the more traditional teams are also catching up. We will still be behind, but our jump toward those top teams is much bigger, so that gap is always shrinking."

"The way we work today, I dare say we are among the best 10 teams in the world in terms of performance. There are still extremes, with certain teams that can invest more budget-wise in nutritionists. Teams that can bring cooks to every race and have an even larger coaching staff. We can't do that with Lotto today, but we also use food apps that say what a rider should eat daily. That's a big 'gain'. We are doing more testing where clothing and rider positions are optimized. That's another step."

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Lotto is catching up on performance 

Lotto switches from Ridley to Orbea bikes

The change of bike brand from Ridley to Orbea has also brought quality. "Orbea's full set-up comes out better than Ridley's. Also, the time trial bike is very competitive. Also, our helmet partner, Ekoï, has made a tremendous change. You no longer talk about marginal gains there, but huge gains."

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