Tarling storms the European Championships 🌪 The 19-year-old has been crowned as the European Individual Time Trial champion after beating Bissegger and Van Aert by 42” and 43” respectively 🤯 ________________ 🇪🇺 #EuroRoad23
"I can say that I will lose my best teammate" - Emotional Wout van Aert reacts to 'unfair' news of Van Hooydonck's retirement
CyclingThursday, 21 September 2023 at 11:02
Wout van Aert was unable to take victory at the European Championships in the individual time-trial, finishing third behind Joshua Tarling and Stefan Bissegger. Post-race though, the Belgian's thoughts were elsewhere.
Having suffered a cardiac arrest whilst at the wheel of his car and crashing into a number of other cars, van Aert's Jumbo-Visma and Belgium teammate Nathan Van Hooydonck has now been diagnosed with a heart muscle anomaly and given an internal defibrillator (ICD) which sadly means his professional career in the peloton has been brought to a close.
“It was hanging in the balance. I'm especially grateful that he was able to fight through it,” reflected van Aert in his post-race interview on the day Van Hooydonck was allowed to return home. “For him it is a blow that he can no longer practice his passion. I can say that I will lose my best teammate."
The news of Van Hooydonck's crash has understandably hit van Aert hard as he's admitted over the past few days. “I'm having a hard time with it,” he says, fighting the emotion in his voice as he speaks. “He has already had so much pushback, it is really unfair.”
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024