Bert De Backer doubts Wout van Aert's ability to grow enough in form for Olympic Games: "It is difficult to build up condition in a Grand Tour"

Wout van Aert's season was turned on it's head with the brutal crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen. Cobbled monuments and Giro d'Italia out the window and the Tour de France was inserted. The Olympic Games remained the only untouched goal for the summer and the Belgian rider remains focused on it, but not everyone believes the Tour is the best way to get the ideal form.

"It is difficult to build up condition in a Grand Tour. He will gradually be well again, but he will have to rest in between. As far as that is possible in the Tour," Bert de Backer told Sporza. "The time trial will have been a tough challenge that he will have to try to recover from. Although that won't be easy in Saturday's stage."

The former pro argued that a Grand Tour is ultimately not the best way to prepare for a one-day race afterwards, although it depends a lot on how the race goes and the form the riders enter with. Mathieu van der Poel, van Aert, Mads Pedersen and Tadej Pogacar highlighted the World Championships last year right after competing in the Tour, all of them with different roles in the race.

De Backer believes that if van Aert gets the freedom to ride a few stages more calmly and without the pressure to do work, that this can possible be achieved. "The essence is that he has to go very deep in a few stages, but also not go deep at all in a few stages, where he is not riding in the service of the team, but simply building up reserves. That's when you can improve."

Van Aert has aimed for the sprints so far in the race and has also been working in support of Jonas Vingegaard as he looks to remain as high as possible in the overall classification. In most days, this role will remain, and de Backer believes that if "he has to work his tail off every day, there will be little progress."