Injuries and illness have set him back in both disciplines on several occasions, with most recently a gastrointestinal disorder forcing him to drop out of his final Tour prep stage race, the Baloise Belgium Tour, on June 21. The after-effects of that illness could have been responsible for his mediocre performance in the Belgian national road race championship, in which he finished 47th, 3:20 behind the winner, Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates–XRG).
After winning the U23 European road race title at the age of 18, Nys was seen by many observers as a future superstar, in both road racing and cyclocross. And though the 22-year-old son of cyclocross legend Sven Nys has amassed a decent road Palmares so far, he has not yet had the big breakthrough. Since he started his road race career in 2023, Nys has recorded 12 wins, including GC victories in the 2024 Tour of Hungary and the 2022 Flèche du Sud, stage wins in the Tour of Poland, Tour de Suisse and Tour de Romandie and victory in the 2023 Grosser Preis des Kantons Aargau over the likes of Marc Hirschi (then UAE Team Emirates, now Tudor Pro) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious).
Good, but not remarkable – but he is only 22 years old and he is progressing. Most of those stage wins were achieved last year, and Nys began this year by winning the one-day Gran Premio Miguel Indurain. He then finished 37th in the Itzulia Basque Country, finding it “super-hard racing.” But he admitted during the race that he was only using it to prepare for his first go at the Ardennes Classics.
He finished a decent 12th in the Amstel Gold Race, 49 seconds behind the top three, Lidl-Trek teammate Mattias Skjelmose, world champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) and double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step). He followed that performance with an excellent 8th place in La Flèche Wallonne, only 16 seconds behind winner Pogačar, and ended the campaign with an even better fifth place in the super-long (252km) Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The illness that interrupted his training program was unfortunate, but he has recovered and it seems clear from his program that he will be going for stage wins in the Tour de France.
Like his likely main rivals in the Tour, Wout van Aert (Visma–Lease a Bike) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Nys is an excellent bike handler but with the impetuosity of youth, which has led to some unfortunate crashes in cyclo-cross. However, he goes into the Tour full of confidence and has already targeted several stages in the first week for possible wins. In an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws Nys said, “Stages 2 [finish at Boulogne-sur-Mer], 4 [Rouen], 6 [Vire-Normandie] and 7 [Mûr-de-Bretagne], eh? They are all good chances. That’s on paper, though, because it depends on so many factors. How is the race going? Will a breakaway stick? How do I feel?”
Aside from specific goals, Nys said that the general objectives of his first venture into the deep waters of the Tour are: “I don’t want to disappoint myself and especially not the team. Apart from my form and a possible stage win, I am curious about the answer to the question: ‘Can I maintain myself at the highest level?'”
Nys said that he would be working for the team in the second half of the race and riding in support of Lidl-Trek’s GC leader Mattias Skjelmose. And he agreed with teammates who said that his lack of experience with positioning could expose him. In the Tour, front spots are more valuable than diamonds and the competition for them is ferocious.
“I still lack that experience,” Nys admitted. “In Liège-Bastogne-Liège, if necessary, I rode fast on the La Redoute or on the Rosier, and voila I was where I [needed] to be. But if that doesn’t happen in the Tour…”
Whatever happens, Thibau Nys’s first Tour de France will be a risky learning experience, like a non-swimmer being thrown into the deep water at summer camp. The hope is that it will be the first of many successful Grand Tours for the ambitious young Belgian.
