On the eve of the first races of 2023, Performance Manager Aike Visbeek explains how the success of 2022 served to prepare the new season, what happened behind the scenes on an organizational level and the new strategic orientation of the structure of Jean-François Bourlart.
This winter the structure welcomed many young Belgian and international talents. Next to the fourteen riders of the new Continental Development Team Circus-ReUz-Technord, more than one third of the members of World Team Intermarché-Circus-Wanty is 24 or younger.
BUILD ON THE SUCCESS OF 2022
« In order to continue the professionalization of our organization, we used our succes of 2022 as a pillar. The past six months we launched a new Continental Development Team, we expanded our nutrition cell, we set up a collaboration with the UC Louvain and we recruited new sports directors and a third trainer. »
« We also recruited a second R&D responsible in addition to our hardware expert. This software (clothing, helmets, shoes) responsible will participate to the increasing interaction with our technical partners, from which we progressively notice performance gains. »
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
« Taking into account our main challenge for 2023 which resulted from the fact that we deliberately recruited young talents, this important investment in our organization was necessary. Our performance plan provides a major focus on the development of the talents in our structure, both within the World Team as within Circus-ReUz-Technord, our new Continental Development Team directed by Kévin Van Melsen. »
« Thanks to our new talent coach Dimitri Claeys, we have a new sports director in addition to Pieter Vanspeybrouck whose principal mission is to follow up the youngest riders of the World Team. The integration of Circus-ReUz-Technord means that we work with a global performance plan for the whole structure, which is coordinated between the teams. »
« Concretely, this means that our U23 riders are invited to all our performance activities such as training camps, course recons or equipment tests and that several riders, such as Francesco Busatto or Roel van Sintmaartensdijk, will regularly race with the World Team. Exchanging sports directors such as Dimitri Claeys, Hilaire Van der Schueren or Bart Wellens guarantees an efficient and transparant coordination between the World Team, the Continental Development team and the Cyclocross Team. »
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A THIRD SPRINT TRAIN
« After a season with major focus on results, the guiding principle for 2023 is the development of our talents. But at the same time, we stay focused on the classics and sprint races, in which we achieved most successes in the past. » « In this regard we are pleased that we made another step by putting on the rails a third sprint train. We chose for a system with five sprinters, who will be divided following a meticulously defined programme, to enable our young group of sprinters to successfully handle our very extended program of sprint races from January to October. »
« This periodization was the key of our success in 2022. So we worked hard behind the scenes the last couple of months to establish a planning with preparation and peak periods for each rider. All expert groups were mobilized during several performance activities this winter to prepare our performance plan, which shows that our organization again made an important step forward. »
« Despite the expansion of our structure and the changes behind the scenes, we keep our family atmosphere, our passion and our team culture, which have been the most important driving force of our evolution. We combine this identity with our intention to always keep professionalizing our organization more and more by working hard and in an intelligent way. »
