All Rounder
DOB 24-10-2000
AGE OF DIAGNOSIS 15
YEARS WITH TEAM 5
Racing with diabetes isn’t our limitation, it’s our statement of how to overcome.
PROFILE
Quinten De Graeve returns to Team Novo Nordisk in 2026 for his fourth season with the team, in the role he has made his own: the rider who works for others. At 25, the Belgian all-rounder has become one of the team’s most dependable domestiques, the least visible job in bike racing and one of the most valuable.
De Graeve grew up in Knesselare, in East Flanders, in a household where cycling was simply part of life. He rode from an early age alongside his stepfather and godfather, and it was his aunt who bought him his first racing bike.
At 15, he began experiencing leg cramps, frequent urination, and severe dehydration. A diagnosis of type 1 diabetes followed soon after. The initial shock was real, but his doctor and his family pushed him to get back on the bike quickly and learn to ride with the condition rather than around it, an approach that has defined how he races since.
He began competing locally on the road, and in 2022 traveled to Italy for a Team Novo Nordisk talent ID camp. He was selected to race with the development team for 2023.
He did not stay there long. A strong start to the season in European races earned him a mid-season promotion to the professional roster in June 2023, and he made the most of it immediately: racing the Tour of Denmark in August, then the Tour of Hainan and the Japan Cup in October. Since then he has built a reputation not on his own results but on the work he does inside them: sheltering teammates, closing gaps, doing feeds.
There isn’t much of an “off the bike” for De Graeve. His spare time goes to working on bikes and to his girlfriend, Justine.