It’s almost time for the storyline to reappear: will he, won’t he? Will 2025 be the season that Wout van Aert finally wins a cobbled Classic Monument? Belgium’s successor to Tom Boonen, the man who won three Tour of Flanders and four Paris-Roubaix titles, has been plugging away at both De Ronde and the Hell of the North since 2018, finishing second, third, fourth, and further down the top 10, but never on the top step; on more than one occasion, injury and illness have thwarted him. Meanwhile, his arch-rival Mathieu van der Poel has won Flanders three times, once as a world champion, and been victorious in back-to-back editions of Roubaix. The Monument count reads: Van der Poel 6 - Van Aert 1. It’s a whitewash, the latter’s only victory in one of the five big one-day races being the 2020 Milan-Sanremo.
And so, with the cycling season waking from its winter slumber and Opening Weekend weeks rather than months away, the cobbles are on the horizon. And Van Aert, now 30, is back to confront the little chunks of rock he’s so far conquered in every other race other than the two races that really matter. “Some people create it in the newspaper that it’s an obsession, but that’s never been my words,” the Visma-Lease a Bike rider tells the media at his team’s training camp in Spain. “I always like to turn it around and say to you guys: Flanders, Roubaix, I don’t really care, I just try it, but it doesn’t matter. What would you guys reply then? I just think it’s a normal ambition for a rider like me who’s won basically all the other Classics, it’s normal that I target these races. I keep the belief and I am really ambitious for it. That’s it, that’s what makes me hungry every day. If it works out it will be a huge relief, and if not then for sure I will have had a good time trying to chase these dreams.”
All that might be true, but there’s no pretending that previous years have not been distressing and heartbreaking. And there’s also no getting away from the fact that a rider with Van Aert’s repertoire of talent and skillset should be winning both Monuments. It would be a travesty if he were to retire without the races on his palmarès. “I’ve been racing the Tour of Flanders since 2018 and from the first edition it looked really promising that maybe I could win it one day, both Flanders and Roubaix,” he adds. “So if you would have asked me then I probably would have believed it by now that I would have won it, or have been more in a position to win it. But sometimes I was far off or not even at the start.”
Bad luck has often been his downfall. “Like the flat tyre in Roubaix [in 2023] or Covid infection a couple of days before Flanders [in 2022], or the crash this year [in 2024 at Dwars door Vlaanderen], not much to do about that,” he points out. But neither is misfortune the reason why both races are still absent from his win tally. “I cannot say 100% that if I was at the start I’d have won it. I probably was in good shape with a good chance, but actually, you never know. For sure I’m really looking forward to these opportunities again and I do believe that I have it in my legs. The main goal for me is winning the Monuments that are missing.”
In the meantime, Van Aert is racing a shortened cyclo-cross calendar – and surprising himself. He returned to action at late December’s Azencross, finishing fourth, and then won on successive days a week later while caked in so much mud he’d have required several extra rinses through the washing machine. “I think the effort you put in these one-hour races, you can’t do in training,” the three-time world champion in the discipline says, dismissing the prospect of ever skipping the ‘cross season. “It also helps your skills, helps me to pass the Christmas period in a good way, and it’s part of my nature, basically. It would feel strange to me not to do this as I’ve been doing it since I was eight years old, that’s where I started, so if you have the background, as I have, I think it’s super good training in the winter and something that is really beneficial for the road season that is coming.”
Beyond the Classics, that road season includes two Grand Tours, both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. He will make his debut in the former, targeting stage wins and possibly an opening week pink jersey. “I look at the parcours and there will be opportunities basically every day because there are a lot of intermediate stages,” he says. “Some bunch sprints for Olav [Kooij], and then on the mountain days we will support Simon [Yates].” After that comes the Tour de France, a revenge mission for Jonas Vingegaard. “After losing the Tour with the team last year, I want to be part of it again as a team winning the Tour,” he says, firing a warning shot at Tadej Pogačar. “Even if Pogačar won it in ‘24, he needs to be better to win it in ‘25.”
Van Aert, too, needs to be better if he’s to at long last win Flanders and Roubaix. “I have the belief that if I give myself the time, I will be back where I belong.”
