'People who know me know I'm sometimes a bit loco' - Lotte Kopecky's rise to be the best cyclist in the world

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 7 March 2024. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

It is an overcast afternoon in the medieval Belgian city of Ghent, and a racket is beginning to stir. Throngs of people have gathered in Kouter Square, usually a tranquil flower market, for the homecoming of their hero. Suddenly, a wooden cart appears. It trundles past the crowds, who turn to stare. On it, two rows of raucous men face each other, each turning their own set of pedals as they slosh their drinks and sing along. It is a beer bike, a staple stag do activity, and the revellers have just spotted someone important. 

They cannot believe their luck. There, in the square, is the new cycling world champion, Lotte Kopecky, greeting the masses on a specially organised fan day. “I was just standing there taking photos with fans,” she remembers. Until, all of a sudden, she was not. Summoned by chants of her name, a slur in unison to the tune of The White Stripes anthem ‘Seven Nation Army’, Kopecky did something none of the men expected: she vaulted over the metal barriers to join them. “It looked funny, so I ran to the bike and I jumped on it,” she laughs. “The guys really liked it. Afterwards, I got a lot of messages from them. They even asked me to come to the wedding. I couldn’t go, but it was a very funny moment.”

It is a side to the world champion that cycling fans might not recognise. On the road and track, the 28-year-old Belgian is a straight-faced assassin, admired for her pedal-thrashing panache that has earned her world titles, three national road race titles, Monument victories and six days in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes. And yet, for all the working hard, there is time to play hard, too. 

As she sits opposite Cycling Weekly, video-calling from a training camp in Spain, she emits a demeanour of professionalism, her hair in a ponytail and wearing a coral pink t-shirt. Aware that the 28-year-old has recently launched her own clothing brand, I ask what is behind the ‘LoKo’ concept. “People who know me know I’m sometimes a bit loco. It comes from my name. Lotte, Kopecky – Lo, Ko,” she explains. “I like to do, not extreme, but crazy things. That’s why the name of this brand just really suited me.” 

The beer bike incident would appear to support her claim. Had there not been a video of it, the stag party might have struggled to convince people of their encounter. But there Kopecky is, in high definition on Instagram, serenaded and swigging cola from a plastic cup, dressed in bib-shorts and a rainbow jersey. 

When she won those stripes in Glasgow last summer, the first Belgian woman in 50 years to become road world champion, she knew her life was about to change. She joked to the press that she would need to barricade her doors when she returned home to Flanders. There was a hint of seriousness in it, too. 

“Now, everybody is recognising me,” the SD Worx-Protime rider says. “It’s not that easy to go outside without getting recognised, or without people asking me for a selfie. Even when I’m riding on my bike, people ask me to stop to get a selfie. I’m like, ‘You can ride alongside me and take a photo, but I’m not going to stop for a selfie.’ It’s part of the job. At this moment, my life is so busy that I’m not at home much, so it’s OK.”

It is a phenomena that female cyclists have never really faced previously. When Kopecky was a child, her role models were men, with little coverage of women’s cycling on the television. “There was nothing,” she says bluntly. “The only races I watched were the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but it was for men. When I was younger, I didn’t have any female examples. It was the time of Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, and if there was one woman I knew, it was Marianne Vos. She was the only one who got a bit of attention. But that was it, actually.” 

Now, particularly in her native Belgium, Kopecky is a star. Such a star, in fact, that she has been credited with the ‘Kopecky Effect’, inspiring a whole generation to take up cycling. Last spring, it was revealed that the number of girls registering for a race licence in Flanders had quadrupled since 2020, a figure attributed largely to Kopecky, and one that will no doubt have increased after her glory at the World Championships in August. 

Still, for a woman in her 20s, being a role model to so many is a heavy responsibility. “In the beginning, it was not that easy for me,” she explains. “When I started, I was like, ‘I just want to ride my bike and that’s it.’ Now there’s so much more behind it. It’s nice to be an example for those young girls. If, in the future, we can have lots of Belgian girls, or even from other countries, who start riding a bike because of me, because of us, I think it’s only nice. I’m proud to have them watching and to inspire them.” 

As a child herself, Kopecky did “every kind of sport,” she recalls. She skied and played basketball, but the sport she did for the longest time was football, spending several years of her childhood as a striker for FC Schelle, the local team named after the town where she grew up. “I don’t remember that much anymore from my youth,” she says, “but when I hear my parents talking about it, it sounds like I was a pretty wild player. I liked to play with the boys and…” The Belgian karate chops her right hand into her left palm. “I just went full-on in games,” she adds with a smile. 

At nine years old, Kopecky discovered cycling, inspired by her older brother Seppe, one of her first role models in life. “Just by seeing him doing it, I was like, ‘Maybe I also want to try this’,” she says. “I really liked it. Back then, I just wanted to race, from weekend to weekend. In the week, I was not riding my bike. I got to love it more and more. In the end, it looks like it was the right decision.” Seppe Kopecky died suddenly and unexpectedly last March, aged just 29. Only a few days later, Lotte raced and won Nokere Koerse, commenting afterwards that she had “raced with two”. 

As she gained experience, Kopecky’s potential soon shone through. She enrolled as a teenager in the TopSport School in Gent, an institution reserved for Flanders’ most promising young athletes, and a feeder programme for the Olympics. There, lessons were entwined in the timetable with training sessions, each student receiving their own plan. 

It might come as a surprise that now, as a fully fledged professional in the world’s best team, Kopecky takes care of that timetabling herself. She does not have a coach, and since the beginning of 2023, has been constructing all of her own training plans, last season forging her own path to three world titles: one on the road and two on the track. “My normal day looks a bit like everybody’s normal day,” she says, playing down her hard work. “I make my own plans for races. I have the plan in my head and then discuss it with the team, looking at what we can do and what may be better not to do. It means I can make a plan and adjust it more easily based on how I feel at that moment, or that period.”

The independence, she explains, is serving her well. “If some trainings aren’t working out, it’s easier to say, ‘OK, I’m not doing it’, and also the other way around, like, ‘Today I can do a bit more’ or, ‘I have to do a little bit less.’ I don’t need to call my coach and say, ‘This is how I feel. This is what I want. This is how I see it.’ For me, it works, and I think, mentally, I like to have the control.” She pauses. “It’s nice to be able to have control over my own body.”

When planning out her season, Kopecky runs a tight ship. The only slot she had for this interview was first thing on a Saturday morning, between breakfast and training. Still, she makes sure to find time for pleasure among the business. Last month, in the days leading up to the UAE Tour, the Belgian turned to her bucket list and skydived over Dubai. 

“I like to do some adventurous thing as well,” she says, “sports with a lot of adrenaline. I saw it already before I went to the UAE that they had skydiving in Dubai, and I was like, ‘Maybe if we have time, we can go and do it.’ I did it together with my team-mate Barbara Guarischi. I was not scared. I wondered how I would feel when I jumped out the plane, and I smiled with excitement.”

In the days that followed, the Belgian went on to win the overall at the race, claiming a stage atop the mountain of Jebel Hafeet. It was a significant victory, her first on a summit finish, and one that cemented her place as the strongest all-round talent in the peloton. 

Asked for the secret to her versatility, Kopecky takes no time to stop and ponder. “I think it’s all about the power,” she replies. “I mean, I’m not the lightest rider. Compared to the climbers, I have a lot more weight to carry up the climbs. In that way, if I compare myself, I’m going to be surprised, but luckily there’s enough power. I think it’s also because, over the years, compared to before, I’ve been going more and more to Spain. You spend almost the whole winter climbing.” What this all means is that, today, she can sprint with the best, float over the cobbles, and scale climbs faster than the mountain goats. 

Winning, however, did not always come so easily. After claiming her first national road title five years ago, aged 23, she waited over a year for her breakthrough WorldTour victory. Mentions of her name multiplied in the Belgian press at the time as she was billed as the country’s next big hope. “Every week, you’re in the newspaper, or your head is on the TV,” she says. “I used to have more problems with it, maybe before Covid. People had some expectations. I was a good rider, but not the top rider, and they wanted me to win but I was not able to yet.” What made the difference? “Now, I’m really relaxed with these things. I think I’ve proved what kind of rider I am and what I’m capable of. I don’t put this pressure on myself anymore.” 

When everyone around her expects her to succeed, she shrugs her shoulders, and deals back a que será, será. She feels the same way about her next six months in the rainbow jersey. “I really want to try and enjoy it a lot,” she says. “I hope I can win as much as possible, but that will not be the easiest thing to do. After this year, if I never win the rainbow jersey again, I just want to be happy about my year and know that I enjoyed it - hopefully with a few nice victories and some nice finish line photos that I get to keep for the memories.”

It is an unexpectedly relaxed attitude from the world champion. She is, at the same time, devoted to racing her bike, and carefree in her take on life. Loco, as she might put it. How would her friends describe her? “You’re asking me to describe myself,” Kopecky laughs, quickly decoding the question. She then shifts to a more serious tone and obliges. “For me, the most important thing is that everyone feels respected,” she says. “I want to always feel respected. I also want to be a fun friend who they can make memories with. I think I’m an easygoing person. It doesn’t need to be too hard all the time.”