It wasn’t quite Diego Maradona in Foxborough, but it was a message of defiance all the same. “Ik moet juist niks!” Wout van Aert shouted into the lens of the television camera as he slowed to a halt after winning E3 Saxo Bank in a three-up sprint: “I don’t have to prove anything.
Van Aert has raised the bar higher than most in recent seasons, but that doesn’t inoculate him from criticism when he fails to clear the required height. A bout of illness in February saw the Jumbo-Visma rider make a slower start to the season than anticipated. It’s all relative – he was third in Milan-San Remo, after all – but the chatter in Belgium was steadily rising all week ahead of this definitive dress rehearsal for the Tour of Flanders.
“Wout urgently needs to win a race, otherwise he will get nervous,” former Lotto manager Marc Sergeant suggested in Friday morning’s Het Nieuwsblad, a thought echoed by Tom Boonen on Sporza’s Wielerclub Wattage podcast.
“You need a victory in Harelbeke for yourself to be able to live peacefully ahead of the Ronde.” Boonen, whose three Tour of Flanders victories were all preceded by E3 wins, knows of what he speaks.
Above all, perhaps, Van Aert – condemned to spend his entire career locked in an unending duel against a longstanding rival – has spent the last week hearing constant reminders that Mathieu van der Poel now leads him 3-1 in Monument victories after his triumph at Milan-San Remo. It followed a defeat at Van der Poel’s hands at the Cyclocross World Championships, a series the Dutchman now leads 5-3.
At the E3 Saxo Classic on Friday, Van Aert occasionally looked in difficulty when the road climbed, most obviously when he was briefly dropped on the Oude Kwaremont by Tadej Pogačar and Van der Poel.
“It was definitely the hardest moment of the race for me,” said Van Aert, but he still made it to Harelbeke in their company and then saw them both off in the sprint to win his second successive E3. His cry past the finish line, he explained, was instinctive.
“I’ve been asked a million times, in basically every interview in the last two months. And if people know me, these things motivate me, and sometimes I can’t help myself, and I threw it out there,” Van Aert told the reporters who huddled around him in the press room afterwards. “When you win a sprint like this one, there’s a lot of emotions going through you. It was just what popped up in my mind. I could finally answer with my legs today.”
Without a television screen or a clear view of the line, the reporters standing in the mixed zone had to rely on sound to identify the winner on Friday afternoon. The thunderous cheers rising from the finishing straight suggested the home favourite had prevailed and that was confirmed moments later when a Van Aert supporter marched unsteadily past, joyfully serenading the day’s winner in song
A different kind of lubrication had been a talking point in the finale, given that a Jumbo-Visma mechanic had leaned out the window of the team car to apply oil to Van Aert’s chain ahead of the final climb of the Tiegemberg. Although the practice is notionally forbidden by UCI rules, the jury took no action against Van Aert, who explained he had been concerned about his shifting ahead of the impending sprint.
“I struggled with it for quite a long time, but the final started with 100km to go, so I never had the chance to see the car again. I think someone touched my derailleur and it was not shifting well. I asked the car to check the gearing,” said Van Aert, who laughingly refused to blame the issue for his travails on the toughest climbs. “On the Kwaremont, it was just a matter of legs.”
Same result, different performance
Twelve months ago in Harelbeke, Van Aert marked himself out as the obvious favourite for the Tour of Flanders after he powered to the finish in a two-up break with teammate Christophe Laporte, though a case of COVID-19 would later rule him out of the Ronde. This time around, the Belgian’s E3 victory provided some reassurance, but his performance still left space for doubt ahead of the biggest race of his Spring.
By his own admission, Van Aert was compelled to ride on the defensive for the final 80km, first by parrying Van der Poel’s wicked accelerations on the Taaienberg and Stationberg, and then by hanging tough when Pogačar forced the pace in the winning move on the Paterberg and Kwaremont.
“It’s completely different. Last year, I was more on the top of my game than I probably was today. There, I was the one attacking the race and deciding the race, together with Christophe,” Van Aert said. “Today my current shape decided that I had to ride more defensively and try to hang on. Maybe that makes it more beautiful that I won the race by not being the strongest. But it’s the victory that counts.
“It was not really my tactic up front, but it was the only thing I could do. Mathieu definitely put me under pressure with a few attacks. At the start of the final, I was rather defensive, especially because I had teammates coming up from behind, so that was a tactical decision. Later, from the Kwaremont, I think I was the one who struggled a little, so then it’s normal you try to hang on and survive.”
Van Aert looked more comfortable by the final climbs of the Karnemelkbeekstraat and the Tiegemberg – even nabbing the prime of €3,000 of bathroom furniture for being first over the latter – and he then delivered a long, long sprint to beat Van der Poel and Pogačar to the line in Harelbeke.
“I've done short sprints in the past, but now I know they don’t favour me,” Van Aert laughed. “I may look like a dumbass, but I'm trying to learn too."
The Tour of Flanders
After Milan-San Remo, it was the second Classic in a row where Van Aert had Van der Poel and Pogačar for company in the finale, and at this remove, it feels almost a given that the winner of the Tour of Flanders winner will come from their number.
“You expect Mathieu, but Pogacar is a Tour de France winner, so it’s still exceptional to see what he’s doing in hectic races like these,” said Van Aert.
Despite losing out in the sprint, Van der Poel and Pogacar will have been heartened ahead of the Ronde, not least by how they troubled Van Aert on the climbs. Van Aert’s own prospects, mind, will surely improve if Jumbo-Visma lieutenants Dylan van Baarle and Tiesj Benoot can avoid the crashes that limited their usefulness here.
“Due to the circumstances today, we couldn’t really play with our numbers,” Van Aert said. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s racing.”
Although Van der Poel and Pogačar have both opted against racing again before the Tour of Flanders, Van Aert confirmed that he would line out at Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday. “It’s a special Classic, I like it a lot,” he said. “I didn’t race much until now so it can only make me better.”
Nothing to prove? Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still room for improvement.
