Hilaire Van der Schueren recently stepped down from his position as a team manager. The 75-year-old veteran with extensive experience at Intermarché-Circus-Wanty quietly left the role two weeks ago during the Belgian cycling event, Zwevezele Koers, a local race. “But I don’t plan to completely distance myself from the world of cycling,” Van der Schueren stated in a conversation with the Dutch website WielerFlits.
50 years of History in Cycling
Hilaire Van der Schueren served as a team leader for a whopping fifty years. He started with teams like Palmans-Collstrop, Unibet, Vacansoleil, and spent the last decade with Intermarché-Circus-Wanty. “But it’s been good until now. I’m fortunate that my health is still good, but at some point, you have to stop, right? I thought fifty was a good number: a perfect moment.”
Team athletes were not aware. It was already known that he would retire as the team leader at the end of this year. But where he would do it, they didn’t know. “Very deliberately, you know. I don’t like to make a big fuss about it. I said at the beginning of the year that I would be leaving, and voilà. For me, we didn’t have to do much about it. Afterward, nothing really happened. Of course, because the cyclists didn’t know anything (laughs). It was only communicated to them shortly afterward.”
“I didn’t want the whole race to revolve around me. What made me very happy is that we won the last two races with me in the car,” said Van der Schueren. “Gerben Thijssen was the best in both the Zwevezele Koers and the Omloop van het Houtland. That was a good farewell,” concludes the now-retired Hilaire Van der Schueren.