Timo Kielich: 2026 team, palmarès and profile

Team (2026): Team Visma | Lease a Bike
Nationality: Belgium
Born: 5 August 1999, Sint-Truiden, Belgium
Profile: Classics rider; former cyclo-cross and mountain bike racer
Pro since: 2018
Previous teams: Era–Circus (2018), Corendon–Circus (2018), Alpecin–Fenix (trainee) (2020), Alpecin–Fenix Development Team / Alpecin–Deceuninck Development Team (2021–2023), Alpecin–Deceuninck (2024–2025)

Facts checked on 20 October 2026. Every fact has a source, listed at the bottom of this page.

2026 season

28 February 2026Omloop Het Nieuwsblad60th Source
21 March 2026Milano–Sanremo114th Source
27 March 2026E3 Saxo Classic38th Source
31 May 2026Giro d'Italia119th overall Source
19 August 2026Renewi Tour, stage 1Part of the early breakaway; first race after a long rehabilitation Source
13 September 2026Grand Prix Rik Van Looy2nd (riding for the Visma development squad) Source
17 September 2026Tour de Luxembourg, stage 22nd Source
20 September 2026Tour de Luxembourg32nd overall Source
11 October 2026Paris–Tours100th Source

Palmarès

2025Antwerp Port Epic1st Source
2025Tour de Pologne1st in the mountains classification Source
2024Volta NXT Classic (Volta Limburg Classic)1st Source
2023Tour de Wallonie, stage 31st (and winner of the points classification) Source
2023UCI Gravel World Series, Limburg1st Source
2022Course de Solidarność et des Champions Olympiques1st overall (and stage 2) Source
2021UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, under-23 race3rd Source
2019Belgian national mountain bike cross-country championships, under-231st Source

Biography

Timo Kielich is a Belgian rider who joined Team Visma | Lease a Bike in 2026 on a contract that runs to the end of 2028. He was born on 5 August 1999 in Sint-Truiden. He is a classics rider with a background in mountain biking and cyclo-cross, which gave him the technical skills for hard one-day races. Paris–Roubaix is his favourite race.

He started on a mountain bike and became Belgian junior cross-country champion in 2016 and under-23 champion in 2018 and 2019. In cyclo-cross he won the Belgian under-23 title in 2018–19 and took bronze in the under-23 race at the 2021 World Championships in Ostend. An injury cost him a whole cyclo-cross winter and pushed him to try road racing, and in 2021 he signed for the Alpecin–Fenix Development Team.

On the road he won the Course de Solidarność et des Champions Olympiques in 2022. His breakthrough came in 2023, when he won a stage and the points classification at the Tour de Wallonie and also won the UCI Gravel World Series race in Limburg. He stepped up to Alpecin–Deceuninck in 2024 and won the Volta NXT Classic. In 2025 he won the Antwerp Port Epic, which he calls the biggest win of his career, and took the mountains classification at the Tour de Pologne.

In 2026 Kielich rode the spring classics for Visma, including Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Milano–Sanremo and the E3 Saxo Classic. He also started the Giro d’Italia, finishing 119th overall in a race won by his team-mate Jonas Vingegaard. After two broken collarbones and a long rehabilitation, he returned at the Renewi Tour in August, where he was part of the breakaway on the opening stage. In September he was second on stage 2 of the Tour de Luxembourg, beaten only by Marijn van den Berg, and second at the Grand Prix Rik Van Looy.