Breakaways, crashes and photo-finish sprints - Wout van Aert on a day to remember at the Tour de France

Wout van Aert is perhaps the most versatile rider in the peloton, and today he gave that argument a justification by being in the spotlight of the 15th stage of the Tour de France constantly and in many different scenarios.

With the chances pointing towards a breakaway win, the leader of the points classification attacked early in the day together with Nils Politt and Mikkel Honoré to form the breakaway of the day. However, as the peloton blocked the rest of the riders from joining, van Aert himself decided to stop and wait for the peloton so as to save the legs. “I attacked hoping for a big breakaway to form. I’d rather be at the front than chasing in the peloton," he justified. 

As for waiting for the peloton, he explains the decision: "In the end we were only three ahead and, as my radio was broken, I could not receive instructions from the car or information on how the race was unfolding. Until the team car did not reach my group, I did not know what to do. In the end, given the situation, the smartest thing was to stop and wait for the peloton".

Later in the day, he found himself involved in a crash together with teammate Steven Kruijswijk, who was pulled out of the race as a consequence. Adding to Primoz Roglic's loss, it was a bad and damaging day for Jumbo-Visma. "My crash next to Steven Kruijswijk? There was something on the road, someone slowed down in the peloton, Steven could not do it on time... and he went to the ground. It was a stupid fall. As soon as I got up, I saw that he had hurt himself. I waited a little while for him to try to get back together, but he couldn’t," he detailed. 

"Of course, losing two teammates in one day will change our Tour de France. I don’t know how much we’ll have to change our strategy, but of course it will affect us. We’ve had a lot of bad luck today. But we were a strong team and we will continue to be a strong team," van Aert added.

He crossed the intermediate sprint in the head of the peloton as his teammate Jonas Vingegaard returned to the peloton after crashing himself. And then in the bunch sprint the Belgian still had the legs to be in the fight for the win and come incredibly close to it - as only Jasper Philipsen could have the best of van Aert.

With his fourth second place van Aert will surely be disappointed with the outcome of the day, however in terms of personal ambitions he's extended his already safe lead in the points classification.