Wout van Aert is smiling two days before the Tour of Flanders. He’s addressing a room full of global press with a joke about how much he likes his new special-edition Team Visma-Lease a Bike jersey designed specifically for De Ronde – the Belgian rider’s home Monument. His tone is light, even as he looks into the eyes of journalists who have criticised him with little sympathy following his performance on Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday. Van Aert famously finished second in that race despite outnumbering eventual winner Neilson Powless three-to-one in the sprint. “It was a blow,” he reflects, but it has only taken 48 hours for the 30-year-old to put it behind him and look ahead.
The fresh-faced Van Aert who sits wearing a perfectly-ironed Visma-Lease a Bike t-shirt, his hair carefully gelled into a film star quiff cuts an entirely different figure to the dejected, broken athlete who sat in a mucky skinsuit with his head in his hands against a fence in Waregem two days ago. In reality, the Belgian athlete had little choice but to force himself to turn things around. This is elite sport, and bike racing waits for no one. It’s a testament to Van Aert’s character that he can speak so positively straight off the back of such a damning, public defeat.
"Two days later I feel much better,” he states. “The great thing about cycling is that there are always new opportunities. Already on Sunday with the Tour of Flanders. It would have been a shame to get stuck in that disappointment of Waregem."
Being a professional cyclist at the highest level is about far more than just physical strength, and Van Aert is proof of that. He’s had to roll with the punches season after season – written off after underperforming big races, then constantly under pressure to do more even when he does come out on top. It’s an art to be able to drown out the noise and focus on the job in hand, but it’s one that Van Aert has been forced to perfect out of pure necessity. He comments that despite Wednesday’s disastrous ending, he can still draw positives from the race.
"My performance in Dwars door Vlaanderen has boosted my confidence. Conditionally, I am where I hoped,” he says. “Positioning for the climbs also went much better than in the Opening Weekend and that indicates good legs. [Tadej] Pogačar and [Mathieu] Van der Poel are the two big favourites. I hope I have my best legs on Sunday and can follow them. Of course I want to win. But I have to be honest and say that it will be very difficult to beat them."
There is no doubt that things are different for Van Aert in the approach to this year’s Tour of Flanders compared to previous seasons. While once he was considered part of the ‘Big Three’ contenders to win the biggest one-day cobbled Classics, his performances this year have seen him fall out of the bookies’ favourites. This reality is something that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider can take in two ways: either as a blow to his confidence, or, as he says, a chance to race in a new way alongside his teammates, without such a big target on his back.
"I think I wasn't always rightly promoted to top favourite. This year I'm not at the top and I can approach the race in a different way,” Van Aert comments. He explains that he will have co-leadership with Matteo Jorgenson in Flanders but adds that “Hopefully Dylan van Baarle and Tiesj Benoot will also be in the final. We have always gone to the classics with several irons in the fire. And that will be no different on Sunday.”
It’s true that despite the eventual outcome, Visma-Lease a Bike can take positives from what happened in the midweek semi-Classic a few days before. The team’s mistake at the end was costly when they chose to back Van Aert for a sprint rather than using their numerical advantage to attack EF Education-EasyPost’s Powless, but they rode a near perfect race up until that point. The Dutch squad’s attack in the crosswinds was reminiscent of the strong Visma-Lease a Bike Classics performances of old and Van Aert’s second place shouldn’t take away from this.
The 30-year-old appeared more motivated than ever for victory in the Tour of Flanders, looking ahead to the race with an open mind. He’s an exemplary athlete in this way, using great disappointment as fuel for motivation, despite carrying a weight of criticism and expectation on his shoulders. It’s certainly not easy to be Wout van Aert during the Belgian Classics season.
"Of course I want to ride the final myself. If Matteo [Jorgenson] and I are both there, we can discuss who is the strongest. Our goal is to win."
