Arnaud De Lie’s latest achievement in his breakout 2023 racing campaign may be his most spectacular yet. The Lotto Dstny rider was closing in on the victory on Sunday at the Famenne Ardenne Classic as he was leading a sprint into the final hundred meters when his right foot came unclipped from his pedal.
Though De Lie had powered to a hefty gap on the rest of the field with his initial burst, his rivals rapidly started to gain on him as De Lie found himself only half as attached to his bike as he would have liked. The 21-year-old Belgian, however, stayed cool and collected as he proceeded to pedal with just his left leg over the closing meters of the race.
Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Kaden Groves and Soudal-QuickStep’s Florian Sénéchal closed in on De Lie as they approached the line, but De Lie finished it off – with a bike throw, no less – and took the narrow victory.
The UCI 1.1-rated win is De Lie’s second win in less than a week as he claimed the Circuit Franco-Belge on Thursday, and it’s the 10th victory of a season that has also seen him secure his first ever WorldTour victory with a powerful sprint to take the GP Québec last month.
It appears to be his first win, however, secured with just the one leg pedalling, at least as far we know.
Arnaud de Lie has just won #FamenneArdenneClassic with one leg ?pic.twitter.com/ATrrSYbH76
— Domestique (@Domestique___) October 1, 2023
De Lie wins on one leg pic.twitter.com/OmElSGyC2n
— the Inner Ring (@inrng) October 1, 2023
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