I was looking forward to a good pre-summer season of road and off-road racing as you all did, but some killer virus had some other idea’s and has caused havoc in our beloved sport. We are in lockdown, north and south for about 7 weeks now and things are still grim, and this could go on for a few more months before we even can think of resuming races. The dates of a possible return to races are unknown, as whatever happens, other things will have to resume first before we get our turn. But how many events will survive we don’t know either, sponsors having understandable losses and funding will become difficult in the near future as a recession is looming, the economy takes a big hit and this will be a snowball effect for us all. Under such circumstances, the Belgian Project can not operate as normal, we have to adapt as all others. But we here to stay, the website will try to give you as much info possible, entertain you at moments with photos and updates of what is going on. This to honour our sponsors who already had committed to 2020, they will getting an upgrade of advertising as a courtesy, and to give the ones who would have renewed their support a chance to recover first and we will talk in late autumn for a possible renewal.

The Belgian Project is a non-commercial affair, and only will use money’s received this year to keep annual costs and expenses covered, the rest of funding will be moved to our 2021 budget to build-up the bursary funds. We had 42 entries for our bursary and graduates pool, they will automatically be entered in the 2021 selection pool (some will not be U23 anymore but still will be eligible) We only will add to the 2021 pool 1st-year Juniors to the existing selection pool, they will have to apply before 28th Feb 2021, the existing ones have to do nothing, except the ones who have stopped racing for any reasons, if that is the case please let us know when appropriate. As you all understand I can not make a selection this time, criteria I was nearly publicising this March is out of the window, no racing to judge, no results to judge and probably no racing before summer if not later, to visit and make my mind up.

The bursary funds rely also on the donations I get of clubs and events when I do some race commentary for them, or support them with our media team, that, of course, is not happening now due to the lockdown. We would not reach our target now, as our advertising revenue is not as normal either as I explained above. So please keep us in mind if you would have an event on in the future …details can be obtained with dany@belgianproject.cc. But let us first survive this undiscriminating virus and please be safe…our behaviour now will be reflected in our future, we don’t know the outcome of all this and I still believe we can overcome this unpleasant and cruel setback in all our lives. My sincere condolences to all who have lost a loved one due to the virus, as cycling is now the last thing on their mind. Take care and be safe, Dany