Belgium turn to unusual bottle tactic to guide Van Aert and Evenepoel at Worlds

With race radios not permitted, the Belgian team will use drinks bottles to pass information to Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel and their teammates during Sunday's elite men's road race.

Small notes carrying tactical updates will be attached to the bottles handed to riders around the circuit, giving national coach Serge Pauwels another way of communicating as the race develops.

Belgium trialled the idea during Friday's under 23 event and were sufficiently encouraged to use it again with the elite team.

"It is not rocket science," Pauwels told Sporza. "Almost every rider takes a bottle on almost every lap. We tried it with the under 23 riders and it worked well."

The system will not replace the traditional roadside boards used by national teams at major championships. Instead, Belgium see it as an additional channel for information in a race where communication between riders and staff can otherwise be limited.

Pauwels is realistic about what it can achieve.

"It is not something that is suddenly going to decide the race," he said. "But it gives us another way to tell the riders what is happening when the situation changes."

Van Aert has long been critical of racing without radio communication and welcomed any attempt to give riders a clearer picture of events on the road.

"It is not some revolutionary invention. This has existed for a long time," Van Aert said. "But I have never raced like this before, so it will be new for me."

"I will already be happy if it means I know a little more about what is happening in the race. I have said many times that I am not a fan of racing without earpieces."

The Belgian experiment has already exposed one potential weakness.

During the under 23 race, one of the team's bottles ended up with a television cameraman rather than a Belgian rider. That immediately raised another question: what happens if a rival team gets hold of one of the messages?

Van Aert laughed at the possibility.

"I had not really thought about that," he said. "Maybe we need to agree on some kind of code."

Pauwels jokingly suggested Belgium could make life even harder for anyone trying to intercept their instructions.

"Maybe in the even numbered laps we give the real message and in the odd numbered laps we put something false on there," he said.

For Belgium's other leader, Evenepoel, the more immediate concern is not whether rivals can read the notes, but whether the right rider receives them at all.

"It is a good idea, but there are risks," Evenepoel said. "If you miss a bottle and there is an important message on it, then you have not seen it."

The Olympic champion expects Belgium to combine the bottle notes with more traditional roadside communication where necessary.

"It still needs some fine tuning," he said. "Maybe something will also have to be shouted to us."

Evenepoel is not overly worried about missing every update, however. With 12 laps on the circuit, the Belgian riders should have repeated opportunities to pick up fresh information.

"There are 12 laps, so there are 12 chances to take a bottle," he said. "The chance that we do not get the message at all is quite small. But we still have to be flexible."

The unusual tactic also underlines the wider frustration among several riders over the absence of radio communication at the World Championships.

Pauwels believes the original reasoning behind the restriction has become increasingly outdated as racing has evolved.

"It is frustrating that we still have to think about solutions like this," he said. "I think the decision to race without radios came at a time when people felt racing had become too controlled. The sport has changed a lot since then."