"I missed the beat on the Taaienberg" - Wout van Aert disappointed to miss out on the action at E3

Wout van Aert spent three weeks training at altitude and avoided the potential crashes and bad weather that fell down on much of the peloton over the past few weeks. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider is yet to get the important racing rhythm, but he was disappointed to not play a role in the fight for the E3 Saxo Classic.

The Belgian, like many others including the entire final podium of the race, was caught out in an early crash which saw the peloton lose minutes to large group that went up the road. Van Aert was here, but he didn't waste unnecessary energy trying to get back, and Visma didn't work behind to close the gap as they had Matteo Jorgenson in front. Eventually though the race was set to blow up, but van Aert was not in place when action kicked off.

“I missed the beat on the Taaienberg, I was a bit too far there. I was just behind the crack, around position twenty, so from there it was racing from behind. So yes," van Aert told VTM. “I tried to get ahead with the better ones, but it took a long time before we got a breakaway". The Belgian was nowhere near the front when Mads Pedersen launched an attack and was in the peloton then, not able to bridge across to the groups that had been formed ahead. 

Away from the TV broadcast, he then showed his power on the Oude Kwaremont, but by that time the fight for a top result was well gone. "On the Oude Kwaremont I did ride away with Florian Vermeersch". Eventually the duo was caught by the peloton once again, where there was a fight for the final spot in the Top10 won by Mike Teunissen. Van Aert sprinted to 15th on the day.

With just over a week to the Tour of Flanders, he remains confident in his approach, however it is not certain that he will have his best legs after what he put in display today. “That is difficult to say. I did ride a good final, but I had hoped to be in the race. I had hoped to ride a result and that didn’t work out.”