He’s won sprints, time trials, in the high mountains, from breakaways and done everything else in between. Wout van Aert’s array of victories naturally ask the question: could he win a Grand Tour?
A year ago, it was reported that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider would be targeting the general classification at the 2024 Giro d’Italia to test his limits and see how far he could go in three-week racing.
But, a fractured collarbone and ribs at the Dwars door Vlaanderen postponed his Giro debut until 2025. So, now he’s, injury- and illness-permitting, finally heading to the Italian three-week race, is the Belgian considering a tilt at pink?
“That was never the plan,” he told the media at his team’s training camp in Spain. “That was the plan in the newspaper, but not my plan.” Would it ever be an option for him? “Not at all. It’s not my plan to do GC. It doesn’t really attract me.”
That’s that solved, then. And when you consider his physical stature – 78kg and 1.90m tall – it’s logical. But all that leading out for Jonas Vingegaard in the rarefied air of the Tour de France’s highest mountains, including when resplendent in the green jersey as the best sprinter, has highlighted his extraordinary climbing ability.
Nevertheless, Van Aert is keen to make an impression in the Grand Tours in 2025. At the Giro, he’s targeting stages – and lots of them. “I look at the parcours and there will be opportunities basically every day because there are a lot of intermediate stages,” he said. “Some bunch sprints for Olav [Kooij, his teammate], and then on the mountain days we will support Simon [Yates].
“I think in the Giro how we will manage it is that Simon will have more of a free role to see how good he can do in the GC, and later one we will decide how much support he needs for that. But the main focus for all the other guys will be to make it a sprint for example or put me or Olav in position. In that case it will be possible.”
At the Tour, where he’s already worn the yellow jersey and won nine stages, he’ll be looking to add to his win tally, while simultaneously supporting Jonas Vingegaard in his attempt to defeat Tadej Pogačar. “In the Tour de France it’s quite simple – I’m the lucky one who has a free role to go for stage results. Apart from that the main focus is to support Jonas," he said.
Van Aert was part of Vingegaard’s two Tour victories in 2022 and 2023, and though Pogačar claimed his third maillot jaune last summer, Van Aert doesn’t believe that the Slovenian will have it all his own way this summer – even if he admits there is work to do.
“I think everyone needs to step up to catch up with him,” he said. "He definitely raised the bar, he was super strong last year, but on the other hand I think less visibly it was like this every year.
“Jonas winning in ‘23 was better than Jonas winning in ‘22. So even if Pogačar won it in ‘24, he needs to be better to win it in ‘25. We’re improving year by year and you always take the work and efforts you did the year before and you improve them.”
Before the Giro and the Tour comes the cobbled Classics, and Van Aert has unfinished business in both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, two Monuments that have stubbornly remained elusive.
“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 said. “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
“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.”
