Florian Vermeersch

Florian Vermeersch is a Belgian road and gravel cyclist who rides for UAE Team Emirates XRG. He was born on 12 March 1999 in Ghent. He first had success in cyclo-cross as a junior before moving to the road. In 2019 he won the Belgian under-23 road race title. On 1 June 2020 Lotto–Soudal promoted him from its under-23 development team to the professional team. During his career he has also studied history at Ghent University.

In 2021 he won bronze in the under-23 time trial at the World Championships. At that year’s Paris–Roubaix, held in October because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he got into the early breakaway of around 30 riders and finished second in a three-man sprint in the velodrome, behind Sonny Colbrelli and ahead of Mathieu van der Poel. He won the Antwerp Port Epic in 2022 and was second overall at the 2023 Renewi Tour. His first race of 2024, the Vuelta a Murcia on 10 February, ended with a crash on a descent in which he broke his femur, and he missed the spring classics.

Vermeersch has also raced gravel. He won silver at the UCI Gravel World Championships in 2023 and 2024, and became gravel world champion in 2025, his first season with UAE Team Emirates, which he joined on a multi-year contract. On the road that year he was second at the Veneto Classic and in the Belgian time trial championship.

In 2026 he was third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the E3 Saxo Classic and seventh at the Tour of Flanders. At Milano–Sanremo he helped Tadej Pogačar return to the front after a crash before the Cipressa. He rode the Tour de France for Pogačar’s winning team, was third at the Flandrien 0.0 Classic and took silver again at the gravel world championships in Western Australia in October.