Campenaerts has no choice but to admit that he urinated in bottles and explains why he did it

The controversy surrounding the urine bottles in the Giro d'Italia now has a public confession. After several riders pointed to Victor Campenaerts as one of the pioneers of this practice within the peloton, the Team Visma Lease a Bike cyclist has openly admitted that he did use empty bottles to urinate during races and has also explained his reasons in a video shared by the Dutch team.

Victor Campenaerts admits he used bottles to urinate and explains why he did it: “There were only good intentions”

It all started after the official warning issued by the Giro and the UCI, which expressly prohibited urinating in bottles and subsequently throwing them on the road. The organization believes that this practice harms “the image of cycling,” especially since many fans collect those bottles as souvenirs without knowing what they actually contain.

Rather than dodging the issue, Campenaerts decided to respond directly and with quite a bit of humor. “By very, very popular demand, I’m going to give an explanation about the ‘urine bottle’,” the Belgian begins in the video published by Visma.

“It was better than peeing in front of the public”

Campenaerts defended that his intention was never to create controversy and explained that it all started as a practical solution in races where finding privacy is almost impossible.

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“We ride across the whole country on bikes and I think, by law, in most countries it is prohibited to urinate in public,” he explained. “Plus, there are a lot of people by the roadside. So my solution was to pee in the bottle so as not to do it in someone’s garden or on top of the people who are at the edge of the road.”

The Belgian rider even claimed that he considered this option more respectful than stopping by the roadside in front of fans. “I would say it’s better than peeing in front of people,” he commented with laughter during the conversation with Jonas Vingegaard. “Because, of course, they can’t see your parts.”

“Maybe I was the inventor”

The Visma cyclist also indirectly acknowledged that the accusations about his role as a pioneer of this practice are probably true. “Although the accusation that I was the inventor may be true,” he finally admitted.

However, Campenaerts wanted to make it clear that he never threw those bottles at the public and explained that he usually handed them to the team cars. “Then you just give the bottle to the cars behind. So there were only good intentions.”

The Belgian also took the opportunity to point out a common problem within professional cycling. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a designated area to urinate or bathrooms by the roadside like they do in triathlons,” he explained. “In long races, we are a bit forced. Five, six hours, sometimes seven hours looking for a place to pee.”

After all the repercussions generated in the Giro, Campenaerts assured that the practice will disappear for good. “Now it’s prohibited by the UCI. So you will never see me doing that again,” he stated.

 

 

 

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A post shared by Victor Campenaerts (@campenaertsvictor)

The story of these urine bottles, which seemed like a simple internal anecdote of the peloton, has ended up becoming one of the most surreal controversies of the Giro 2026. And probably also one of the few times a rider publicly admits to having revolutionized something so peculiar within professional cycling.