"He has to focus on one thing instead of being a domestique for Jonas Vingegaard" - Fabian Cancellara sends warning to Wout van Aert's Classics hopes

Wout van Aert has big ambitions for this Classics season but with an in-form Mathieu van der Poel once again posing as his standout rival, time-trial legend Fabian Cancellara has sent the Team Visma | Lease a Bike star a warning.

“I don’t know Wout but when you look two years ago with Wout, I don’t think he’s become slower, but he has to focus on one thing instead of being the last domestique rider for Jonas Vingegaard, and that sort of thing,” Cancellara told GCN on Tuesday morning, expressing his concerns for the Belgian. “It’s like with Filippo Ganna, he still thinks about the track and not just fully on the road, because in my opinion, he could still do Roubaix and Flanders."

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Whilst van der Poel does of course, balance ambitions himself, holding the Rainbow Jersey both on the road and in cyclocross, Cancellara believes van Aert could take a leaf out of the book of his greatest rival in order to better compete for monument victories. "If you focus on one thing then it might make you better. It’s as if Van der Poel started to focus on his time trial. It’s not good and we can see with Mathieu that he focuses on fewer things but where he does focus he’s super good," the Swiss explains. "The others have to work on this in my opinion.”

“The performance of Mathieu was one thing in E3, and then we saw the change, the crash for Wout, and then we saw a strong Lidl-Trek on Sunday. What will be interesting to see is whether Wout can make a step up from Dwars door Vlaanderen to Sunday," Cancellara assesses. "Has he recovered and does he have enough confidence because Mathieu is more ahead on the current schedule? Is Wout’s team strong enough, and can they support him enough?”

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