Remembering Wouter: Cycling pros reminisce a friend and teammate

Fabian Cancellara

Fabian Cancellara and Wouter Weylandt rode on the same team for one year in 2011, both on Leopard Trek. Fabian’s first impression of Wouter was that “he was the only Belgian that I know that doesn’t like beer.”

Wouter had just spent the first seven years of his career riding for Quick-Step, and Fabian sensed that the 26-year-old rider was looking for a fresh start. “I think Wouter found with Leopard Trek a new opportunity to find his identity as a rider.”

According to Fabian, Wouter looked up to him and his success. Fabian felt that Wouter was more fragile than his exterior often showed, that he was sometimes dogged by the pressure of winning Belgian races as a Belgian rider. There was no denying his talent, but Wouter was still maturing as a human being when Fabian knew him.

“He didn’t find the flow of positivity I think,” Fabian says. “You win the first bike race as a young guy and you straight away get attention from people here and there and that can also create difficulties.”

Fabian’s lasting memory of Wouter is off the bike, away from the scrutiny and danger of a high-speed sport. Wouter liked to project a “cool” image according to Fabian, but he was a soft spirit. “Somehow he was also generous. He wasn’t an ego. I saw sometimes this sunny boy.”

He remembers Wouter as the Belgian guy in the bar drinking a gin and tonic, smiling as Fabian ribbed him for not conforming to stereotypes.

“It’s a funny memory of him, and that’s why I always see the smile on him,” Fabian says. “I see the smiles; I see the positive. This is how I’m keeping him in mind.”

Iljo Keisse

Iljo Keisse and Wouter Weylandt were best friends, training buddies, and eventually, professional teammates. The pair grew up together with so many experiences shared along the way, before realizing their dreams of turning professional – first Wouter in 2004, before Iljo joined him in the professional ranks a year later. At that time, Iljo’s focus was on the track, whilst Wouter was developing as a sprinter and classics rider on the road. In 2010, the close friends were back together as teammates on the Quick-Step – Innergetic team.

“It’s difficult to choose one moment that I had with Wouter because we were best friends for over 10 years. We met at school, he started cycling and he came next to me during a bike ride to introduce himself. Wouter suggested that we train together because we lived in the same village just two kilometers from each other. There was immediately a click. Basically, every day we were together; we went to school together, after school we went training, after that we went out to the city. We did almost everything together.

“We turned pro at almost the same time, Wouter in 2004 and me in 2005. We had a different focus: he was on the road as a sprinter and classics rider, I was more riding on the track back in the day. In 2010 he managed to make me his teammate, when I joined Quickstep. It was Wouter’s last year there, but I’m very thankful to him because I’m still there. Unfortunately for us, he had to leave the team and he joined Leopard-Trek. Up to his last day we were still texting.

“We had so many good memories. He was very friendly, a bit ‘flamboyant’ as we say in Flemish – when he entered the room you would always see him, he always looked good. We had the same interests: the same music, well everything the same actually.

“He was my best friend and a brother to me, and I miss him very much.”

Giacomo Nizzolo

Giacomo Nizzolo joined the newly-formed Leopard Trek team in 2011 making the jump to the big leagues as a fresh-faced first-year professional. 21 years old and coming straight from Italy into a vast, international team would have been a daunting prospect, not only in a sporting sense, but also to be able to communicate with his new teammates. One of just three Italian riders on the roster, Giaco was pleasantly surprised to find a smiling Belgian speaking to him in fluent Italian.

“I have only good memories of Wouter. I remember the first time I met him at training camp at Crans-Montana, we were in Leopard-Trek. I was a neo-pro and Wouter was one of the sprinters in the Team, so I was looking up to him. I remember I was surprised that he spoke Italian so well, he had a really good pronunciation because he rode for Quick-Step before, and it was full of Italians at the time.

It was a really nice surprise for me the first time I met him, because my English wasn’t very good back then. I shared a room with Wouter at the Belgian classics. I was lucky to be able to ride the big classics like Flanders and Roubaix as a neo-pro; it was a big, big emotion for me, and to be able to share this emotion with a person like Wouter was a great experience that I will always remember.”

Daniele Bennati

Daniele Bennati joined Leopard Trek alongside Wouter in 2011, but only spent a relatively short time as teammates. Like many others who were fortunate enough to call Wouter a teammate, Daniele admired his above-and-beyond work ethic and contribution to the team.

“Wouter for me was an extraordinary example of dedication and passion for his job. A great guy, a teammate with a sense of teamwork like few I’ve seen in my career, a rider with a special talent. He was an inconspicuous but essential leader. As a competitor, I admired him for the work he did for his captains. As a teammate, I had the pleasure to discover an exceptional person who I wanted to continue to know over time.”