Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) said he had "never felt so bad" in his career after illness left him unable to contest either sprint finish at the opening stages of the 2026 Giro d'Italia. The Belgian continues his terrible luck with illnesses as he still tries to recover from Lyme disease.
De Lie fell ill, along with many others, after he won the Famenne Ardenne Classic in Belgium on May 3rd. He has been in survival mode ever since with Lotto-Intermarché having to make last-minute changes to the Giro d'Italia team due to the illness that riders suffered off the back of the race.
The former Belgian champion has been distanced a couple of times in the early stages of the Grand Tour while it took on the Bulgarian Grande Partenza. He was helped back into the bunch and has finished all three stages safely so far but is struggling with the lingering effects on the bacterial illness.
"I couldn't eat. It was really super weird," De Lie told Sporza. "My legs were bad, my stomach too. And my muscles were wrecked."
The turnaround from victory to a compromised Grand Tour start took barely a week. De Lie won the Famenne Ardenne Classic, a one-day race in Marche-en-Famenne, on 3 May, his first win of the 2026 season. Within days he developed gastro-enteritis, a gastrointestinal infection that left him dehydrated and unable to take on or absorb energy. By Wednesday he was in Bulgaria but too unwell to attend the team presentation in Burgas. He started the race on Friday but had no capacity to sprint.
Cause still unconfirmed
All signs point to manure that has been brought onto the roads by heavy rain causing the fields that will have been fertilised to run off onto the roads the race was using. The cow manure and traces from agricultural vehicles were present on the course. The Campylobacter infection is a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever, nausea and vomiting. These symptoms only come a few days after ingestion.
Lotto-Intermarché team doctor Gerard Ackerl said the exact trigger had not been established. "That is a supposition but not a certainty," he said. "It is clear that they have contracted gastro-enteritis. The recovery from that requires a huge amount from the body."
The illness was not limited to De Lie. Milan Menten (Lotto-Intermarché) suffered the same condition and was only cleared to travel to the Giro after the team was satisfied there was no wider health risk. Liam Slock was withdrawn from the squad entirely and replaced by Joshua Giddings. The team had only five riders present at the Burgas presentation because of illness and delayed travel.
Lotto-Intermarché sports director Maxime Bouet said the team had kept De Lie in the hotel before the race start as a precaution, partly to limit the risk of infecting other teams. "Some of our riders have ended up in hospital with it," Bouet said to CyclingProNet's YouTube channel. "Health is our absolute priority."
The disruption extended well beyond Lotto-Intermarché. Reports from the Famenne Ardenne Classic aftermath named Flanders-Baloise and Van Rysel-Roubaix as affected. "Half the peloton is ill," one account stated.
While De Lie lost two sprint chances and, potentially a third when on top form, it is just astonishing he has managed to make it through the opening stages of the Grand Tour considering the horrible situation he and teammate Menten are in. Before the first stage on Friday he offered a cautious assessment: "If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said no. But today, honestly, I slept well and I feel like I have a lot more energy. So I'll try, but without pressure." He did not contest a sprint finish over the weekend.
Ackerl said predicting a recovery timeline was difficult precisely because the cause remained unidentified. "We don't know with certainty what triggered the acute episode," he said. "Every body reacts differently. We know only that they will get better."
The team placed De Lie and Menten together in the same hotel room, a practical measure given both were already affected. The aim was containment: keeping the illness within a closed circle rather than risking spread to unaffected teammates.
De Lie remains in the race. Lotto-Intermarché expects both him and Menten to improve over the coming days, though no specific stage target has been set for a return to sprint contention.
Cover image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
