Victor Kampenaerts, who will move to NTT (formerly Dimension Data) next season, will be able to compete in both the time trial and the Olympic time trial in Tokyo in mid-November, despite having to wait until next May to announce whether he will represent Belgium in next summer's competition. He plans to preview both the time trial and road race courses at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in mid-November.

According to nieuwsblad.be, the world time record holder will be in Japan from November 10-16 with teammates Edvald Boasson Hagen and Samuele Battistella, along with NTT, the new team's Japanese sponsor.

"I will also bring my bike and we will explore the Olympic time trial and road race routes," Campenaerts told the website of the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. 'I won't be riding at 50 km/h, I'm still in rest mode, but it would be ideal for me to ride the course. You get a lot more out of it than looking at a map or watching a video.

Of the two Belgian slots available for the Olympic time trial, Campenaerts' likely rival is current national time trial champion Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma), but Van Aert's teammates Laurens de Pras and Deceuninck-Quickstep's Yves Lampert are also contenders.

Lampaert's Deceuninck-Quick Step teammate Remco Evenpole, who became European time trial champion earlier this season, has already qualified. However, Van Aert recently told the news agency Belga that he is "not going to beg" to participate in the July 21 time trial and that "it is up to the federation to make contact with the best time trialists."

A further consideration for Belgian selection committee member Rick Verbrugghe is that under Olympic rules, members of the time trial team must also compete in the road race, and two of the five slots in the hilly group start competition on July 25 will occupy two of the five slots in the hilly group start competition on July 25.

Regardless of the decision, which will be made in about six months, Kampenaerts said that while in Japan next month, he is also considering the possibility of doing a high-altitude training camp under the slopes of Mt. Fuji before the competition.

"I know it's not a sure thing that I'm going, but I don't want to leave my luck to chance," continued the 28-year-old, who is leaving Lotto Soudal this year after two successful years with the Belgian World Tour team. If I go, I want to be perfectly prepared.

"After the Giro d'Italia (ideal event for me next year with three time trials), I will take some time off and then go to Japan in mid-June for a high-altitude training camp. Fuji is over 3,700 meters above sea level, but there are facilities at 2,000 meters that are ideal for training camps.