Saturday was the day the world got properly acquainted with Lotte Claes. The 31-year-old Belgian has only been a bike racer for four years, with the first two of those spent as a duathlete, and as a hospital nurse. She has also found time to appear on the Belgian special forces-style challenge TV programme Kamp Waes.
And now she is the champion of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
"It's crazy," said the Arkéa-B&B Hotels rider of her victory, "I can't believe it. Wow."
So unused to podium honours is Claes that she had to call on someone with a little more experience to help out. Who better than Demi Vollering?
"I've never had this experience of [opening champagne] before, so Demi helped me," she said, laughing. Vollering had come in third after a chase that was simply too little, too late.
"Kamp Waes was just one week," she said of her reality TV appearance. "It was really hard, I think I slept three hours in three days," she said. Viewers of SAS: Who Dares Wins, a show aired in the UK and the USA, will be familiar with the sort of theing Claes put herself through, including weighted runs, milling and resistance to interrogation exercise."
"I prefer being a professional cyclist," she smiled.
Her switch from combining nursing and duathlon to just cycling had been a "big step", Claes said. "Now I have more time to rest, to go to the physio, to go to the doctor. I had to train before or after work when you're already tired. So the moment I made the switch, it was a really big step."
As a rider who does not particularly enjoy the cut and thrust of the bunch, being up ahead in the break suited Claes down to the ground, she said.
"I was really happy I was in the breakaway because I don't like being in the big peloton. The positioning is always difficult for me. So yeah it was good to be in the breakaway, it was a nice day," she laughed. "Then I heard we were at 10 or 12 minutes and I thought, yeah – maybe we can make it to the finish line.
"We worked really well together. Not all of us were very strong on the climbs but we would wait and work together after [we regrouped]. From the Mur, my team manager said 'now you have to go.'
On command, Claes opened up what would be a race-winning gap along with Poland's Aurela Nerlo (Winspace Orange Seal), as they headed over the iconic climb outside of Geraardsbergen.
They went on to win by 3.25 over chasing pair Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), who had escaped the peloton after it caught the remainder of the day's early break.
Exactly why the break had been given so much time, Claes was unable to say.
I don't understand well why they gave us so much time. But you have the big teams and maybe they thought, ah yeah, we'll ride the last 30 or 40 K full full gas."
Was it disrespectful? She was asked.
"Well, for me it's not a problem. Because I won this race," she quipped. "But I think next time they won't give me 12 minutes."
When she finally took to the podium after half an hour doing interviews, she found her team-mates, some crying tears of happiness, had been waiting for her in the cold.
"We have a really good team," she said. "They're all so friendly and kind. When you see them crying and laughing… my heart was melting."
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