"Everything is constantly measured" - Wout van Aert on the retirement of Visma teammate Simon Yates

Wout van Aert was a great part of Simon Yates' final season in the peloton, however the two have now split apart as the Briton announced his retirement earlier this month before the team's second training camp. Van Aert responds to the question of why retirements for top riders have become more normal and at an earlier age.

The Belgian knows well how to approach the topic, as he has been part of Team Visma | Lease a Bike for several years and has seen several of his teammates go down that path. Notably in 2022, Tom Dumoulin also announced a sudden retirement, and has spoken openly about how he had lost his independence as an athlete.

Several riders have described the rigidity of working in Visma. Whilst the team is widely regarded as the one that has the best preparation methods, they are extremely demanding and not everyone is capable of following it perfectly, or doing so whilst maintaining their motivation.

Simon Yates has now retired from the sport whilst only weeks earlier, van Aert's cyclocross teammate and three-time reigning World Champion Fem van Empel stepped away from the sport at age 23. It might be temporary or permanent, but it looked clear that the Dutchwoman suffered from the pressure.

“To make it something that belongs to our team, I find that a pity. It even hurts a bit, because I really see it as my team," Van Aert said in the Live Slow Ride Fast podcast. “I have the biggest respect for the decisions of, for example, Fem and Simon but they have nothing to do with the environment in our team.”

There is a difference on how riders handle the work at Visma, and those who adapt to it well usually find good results. However preparation for racing in the current peloton is a completely different affair than that in which van Aert turned pro in.

“Cycling is still cycling. It’s a hard sport that asks a lot of sacrifices. Those sacrifices are maybe even bigger because of the data era we’re in," he explains. "Everything is constantly measured, and you constantly have to report how you train, how you sleep, where you are.”