Eindelijk! - finally! - was the single-word headline Belgian sports news agency Sporza used to describe Wout van Aert's victory in the Vuelta a España on Monday, and after one of the longest gaps of his career between wins, eindelijk surely summed up perfectly how Van Aert must have felt after his latest triumph, too.
Several factors have likely played their part in Van Aert's 2024 dearth of victories. But his terrible fall in Dwars door Vlaanderen this April, which sidelined the badly injured Belgian for the Giro d'Italia and only saw the Visma-Lease a Bike rider return to racing in late June, was almost certainly one of the biggest.
Come August, though, a third place in the opening time trial of the Vuelta a España was followed by a second place behind Kaden Groves (Deceuninck-Alpecin) on Sunday, but also a move into the Vuelta's overall lead. Then on Monday as Van Aert powered past the Australian on the slightly uphill finish in Castelo Branco, the long wait for another win was finally over.
With 47 victories now to his name, the 2024 win-drought was not the longest spell of Van Aert's career to date without a victory. After a terrible fall in the 2019 Tour de France time trial at Pau, three days after triumphing in stage 10, it was more than a year before he raised his arms again, at Strade Bianche in August 2020.
However, the 2020 pandemic and absence of racing that caused undoubtedly skewed that particular gap in wins, and regardless of the statistics, the look of sheer joy on Van Aert's face as he celebrated with his teammates made it clear just how important to him this latest triumph really was.
"It was a special victory to win my first in the Vuelta and it's been a difficult year, it's been a while since I could raise my arms. That makes it much more special to win again today," he said.
"Looking back at when I won in the Tour when I was wearing yellow [in 2022] was one of best days in my career, too, and today in the leader's jersey of the Vuelta is something to be very proud of, too."
Van Aert said he had always been confident that a victory would arrive again, but that given his status in the team, the fact that it stubbornly refused to arrive made it harder to accept.
"I consider myself a winner, I'm one of the team leaders, and I always get support to try and go for the victory, so having six months without a win is not nice."
"On the other hand, I spent a long while struggling after my crash in the spring. That's why it's so special and even emotional to win again. To be honest I was not afraid I wouldn't come back, I already felt strong enough in the Tour. I just had to be patient and today is the day."
Van Aert said that he had totally switched strategies after the stage 2 bunch sprint in Oerém, where he was soundly beaten by Groves, whom he later described as a deserving winner.
"The plan was to do the opposite of yesterday", Van Aert said, "I was able to get off Groves' wheel and I think I surprised him by going from 200 metres out."
"My confidence was high, too, the team did a perfect job all day, we had the race under control and they also set me up ideally for the sprint. That gave me the confidence I needed to finish it off."
Van Aert recognised that although he could expect another day in the overall lead, stage 4's summit finish at Villuercas would almost certainly prove too difficult for him and he would now hand over team leader duties to defending Vuelta champion Sepp Kuss and young Belgian GC contender Cian Uijtdebroeks. As he slightly wryly put it, "The fun is unfortunately over now."
Could he one day fight for the overall himself, one Spanish journalist wondered, but Van Aert turned down the idea almost immediately.
"It's way too hard, and I can really do well in a one-day race, or if I pick a day in the stage race, but one stage is coming [stage 4] where I will be happy to support my teammates."
"Luckily after tomorrow [Tuesday] there are a few more opportunities when it's not a summit finish, and I might have a chance to get in a breakaway. But either way, after today's win it's really good to have the morale to build on this."
