Jasper De Buyst will retire from professional cycling at the end of the 2026 season and move directly into a new role as performance manager at Lotto-Intermarché.
The 32-year-old Belgian has spent almost his entire road career with the Lotto organisation, joining what was then Lotto-Soudal in 2015 after two seasons with Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise. Rather than leaving the team when his racing career ends, De Buyst will move into its performance department from the beginning of 2027.
His final appearance as a professional rider will come at the Lotto Six Days of Ghent, an appropriate conclusion for a rider whose career has always retained strong links to the track.
“I will be responsible for everything that falls under performance,” De Buyst said of his new role. “That includes equipment choices, but also coordinating, aligning and setting out the direction together with coaches, doctors, physiotherapists, nutritionists.
“So it is an incredibly broad role, and one I am eager to take on. I can see where there is room for improvement within the team, I understand what riders need and I want to help make those improvements happen.”
De Buyst ends 12 seasons with Lotto
De Buyst arrived at Lotto in 2015 on an initial two-year contract. He never left.
Over 12 seasons he developed from a rider capable of winning races himself into one of the team’s most trusted road captains and lead-out riders. His individual victories included Binche-Chimay-Binche, GP Stad Zottegem and Heistse Pijl, as well as stages at the Tour of Denmark and Tour de Wallonie.
He also continued competing successfully on the track, collecting Belgian titles and international medals alongside his road career.
De Buyst’s importance to Lotto was often most visible in the final kilometres of sprint stages. He formed a particularly effective partnership with Caleb Ewan between 2019 and 2023, becoming one of the Australian’s most dependable lead-out riders during his most successful years with the team.
One example came at the 2020 UAE Tour, when De Buyst delivered Ewan into position before his victory on Hatta Dam.
In more recent seasons his role evolved again. De Buyst remained an important part of Lotto’s sprint and Classics structure, including as support for Arnaud De Lie, while taking a growing interest in how the team’s wider performance operation worked.
He was still filling that road role this summer, with De Buyst part of Lotto-Intermarché’s line-up around De Lie in races including the 2026 ADAC Cyclassics and Renewi Tour.
Heart procedure helped bring retirement decision forward
De Buyst admitted he had not originally expected to stop racing quite so soon.
He underwent an ablation on the atrium of his heart in March. Although he subsequently returned to racing and says he feels physically healthy, the months surrounding the procedure gave him time to think more seriously about what he wanted to do next.
“Sooner than expected, in a way. Physically, I still feel great. My heart is beating exactly as it should and I am not afraid to race,” De Buyst said.
“But when I underwent an ablation on the atrium of my heart in March, I naturally had a lot of time to think. For the past few years, I had already made up my mind that I wanted to stay involved in cycling in some capacity.”
Discussions with Lotto about his future had already begun earlier in the season. The question was whether that future would involve another contract as a rider or a move into a different role.
The uncertainty surrounding his recovery helped settle the matter.
“During those emotional and uncertain months of my recovery, I decided that it had been enough,” he said. “When the Performance Manager position became vacant at a certain point, I decided to take the opportunity.
“It is a role that suits me because I can still approach it very much from a rider’s perspective.”
De Buyst’s 2025 season had also been interrupted when illness forced him out of the Tour de France before Stage 5, after he had started the race as part of Lotto’s support around De Lie.
What will De Buyst do as performance manager?
The title covers considerably more than one area of the team’s preparation.
De Buyst will be involved in equipment choices while also helping coordinate the different specialists responsible for preparing Lotto-Intermarché’s riders. That includes coaches, doctors, physiotherapists and nutritionists.
The attraction for Lotto is obvious. De Buyst will move into the position with recent experience of exactly how performance decisions affect a rider inside the peloton.
He has spent more than a decade living with equipment changes, training programmes, recovery protocols, race preparation and the demands placed on riders across a full WorldTour calendar.
Rather than viewing those decisions purely from an office or coaching perspective, he will be able to judge them against what riders are actually experiencing.
Lotto sports manager Kurt Van de Wouwer said that interest had become increasingly noticeable before De Buyst made the decision to retire.
“In recent years, we increasingly noticed that Jasper was not only focused on his own performances, but was also very interested in how we operate as a team and as a performance staff,” Van de Wouwer said.
“He asks the right questions, contributes ideas and shares his experience with other riders.”
For Lotto, that combination made the move more logical than recruiting somebody with no existing connection to the organisation.
“That combination of race knowledge, experience and interest in performance makes him particularly well suited to this role in our view,” Van de Wouwer added.
“On top of that, Jasper understands the reality of being a rider better than anyone. That will be incredibly valuable when we sit around the table together next season.”
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Photo Credit: Getty
Lotto keep more than a decade of experience inside the team
De Buyst’s retirement could easily have taken a large amount of practical knowledge out of Lotto-Intermarché.
Instead, the team keeps it.
CEO Jean-François Bourlart pointed to De Buyst’s unusually long relationship with the organisation as one of the reasons the transition makes sense.
“Jasper has dedicated his entire professional career to this team,” Bourlart said. “That says a lot about his loyalty, but also about the strong bond that has developed over the years, not only with the other riders, but also with the staff, management and sponsors of the team.”
The move also reflects a wider attempt by Lotto to create roles for riders beyond their racing careers.
“Helping young riders develop and guiding them through their careers is at the heart of Lotto-Intermarché, but at the same time, we also want to give our riders opportunities to continue developing within our organisation after their racing careers,” Bourlart said.
“Jasper knows our team, its culture and the peloton inside out. We are convinced that his experience and personality will allow him to make an important contribution to our performance team.”
Six Days of Ghent will be De Buyst’s final race
Before taking up the new job, De Buyst still has one final racing appointment.
His career will end at the Lotto Six Days of Ghent, bringing him back to the track for his last competition as a professional.
The Kuipke has long remained an important part of De Buyst’s racing programme. He was still competing there alongside Elia Viviani in 2025, when the men’s Six Days field also included world madison champions Lindsay De Vylder and Fabio Van den Bossche, as covered in our look ahead to the 2025 Ghent track programme.
It gives the end of his career a symmetry that a final anonymous road race would not.
De Buyst leaves having raced the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, as well as cycling’s Monuments. He has won races himself, helped deliver major victories for teammates and spent more than a decade inside the same team as its identity changed around him.
“It is difficult to choose the best moment from all those years,” he said. “I have raced the Tour, the Giro, the Vuelta and the Monuments with the team. We have achieved podium finishes and some incredible victories.
“Together with the team, I have also been through some extremely painful and sad moments. And I have made so many friendships along the way.”
What changes in 2027 is that De Buyst will no longer be responsible for getting himself to the start line in peak condition. His attention moves to the riders still doing it.
“I am looking forward to no longer being under that constant pressure of elite sport myself, and to not having to think about every single thing in my daily life,” he said.
“But most of all, I am looking forward to making our riders better and getting the maximum out of every single one of them.”
