Dylan Teuns: ‘All options are open’ with contract situation
‘I don’t have to be the leader number one but in races that suit me I want to get my chances,’ says Belgian rider.
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ROMONT, Switzerland (VN) – Dylan Teuns‘ recent and impressive win in La Fleché Wallonne has catapulted the Belgian towards the top of the tree when it comes to out of contract riders but the 30-year-old is keeping his options when it comes to settling on what would likely be the biggest contract of his career so far.
Teuns has spent four years at Bahrain-Victorious and signed two contracts with the team in that time. Before that he made a name for himself at BMC Racing between 2014 and 2018. In the last four years, he has established himself as a rock-solid contender for victories on a number of terrains but his convincing win on the Mur de Huy earlier in April was by far the biggest victory of his career.
A win of that magnitude would have an obvious set of cascading effects in the transfer market with the Belgian’s value rising and more teams certain to enquire as to his services.
“I keep it to my management and they are working on it,” he told VeloNews when asked for an update on the situation at the Tour de Romandie.
“We will see what the future brings. I hope to have a good future but all options are open at the moment, so we’ll see.”
Teuns clearly wasn’t given much away but he did disclose that he wanted to ride for a team in which he was guaranteed at least leadership in races that suited him.
“I want to keep racing with the same passion that I have now. I don’t have to be the leader number one but in races that suit me I want to get my chances,” he said.
“I was at BMC. That was the start of my career and it was a super nice four years that I can look back on. Now I’m at Bahrain Victorious for four years and we’ll see what the future brings. I’ve no idea, we’ll see what’s next.”
Teuns is at the Tour de Romandie hunting stage wins and possibly a tilt at the overall title. He lost almost half a minute in the opening day prologue time trial, but stage 1 to Romont suits the Belgian with a punchy 1.2km climb to the finish with an average gradient of around seven percent.
“It’s quite soon after the classics and I’m still a little bit tired but the shape is still there so we’ll see. Maybe I’m not the number one favorite but it’s a final that suits me. I think that the leader of the general classification [Ethan Hayter, ed] has a big chance to defend his jersey,” he added.
“It’s quite a hard climb but it gets easier at the finish. It’s a short climb but that suits me. We’ll see it twice before the finish, which is also good. Timing is really important today.”