Bjorg Lambrecht

Bjorg Lambrecht (2 April 1997 – 5 August 2019) was a Belgian cyclist who rode for UCI WorldTeam Lotto–Soudal. In August 2018, he was named in the startlist for the 2018 Vuelta a España. He died on 5 August 2019 after crashing into a concrete culvert during the third stage of the 2019 Tour de Pologne.

Early life and family

Lambrecht came from the Belgian town of Knesselare, situated between Bruges and Ghent. He was born to Kurt and Anje Lambrecht and had a sister, Britt.

Career

In 2015, Lambrecht became the Belgian national junior champion, relegating Glen Van Nuffelen and Stijn Goolaerts to second and third places respectively.

In 2016, he caused a surprise by winning the opening stage of the Ronde de l'Isard. In the final stage he was sent in the wrong direction by the race management. The race jury recognized the error and so Lambrecht became the third Belgian to win this race after Yannick Eijssen (2010) and Louis Vervaeke (2014). Just under two weeks after his final win in France, Lambrecht took part in the Grand Prix Priessnitz spa race with a Belgian selection. Here he managed to win the last leg, with a sloping finish on cobbles in Jeseník, with a lead of a few seconds.

At the beginning of 2017, he won Liège–Bastogne–Liège U23 race by beating his three fellow poursuivants in the sprint. Later that year he was fifth in the Flèche Ardennaise race, second in the final classification of the Ronde de l'Isard, eighth in that of the Tour of the Jura, he won a stage and the final classification in the Grand Prix Priessnitz spa and became second in the final classifications of the Tour de Savoie Mont-Blanc, the Giro della Valle d'Aosta and the Tour de l'Avenir 2017.