Wout van Aert has had two crashes now at this Tour de France. None of them were overly serious or led to fractures but the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider is definitely having obstacles to his goal of improving his form. He has had a good night and isn't thinking of abandoning the Grand Boucle, but may take it more conservative for the coming days as a result.
“I slept quite well. That was welcome. I feel okay this morning. I do have some pain, but I feel much better than yesterday about continuing my Tour,” Van Aert told Sporza this morning. “I didn’t hesitate yesterday, because I could still finish in a good way. But I had a lot of pain when braking and on the bumps. I wanted to rule out that there was nothing wrong. When I knew there were no fractures, I wanted to give it a try.”
The Belgian, who has been so far aiming for results in the bunch sprints, may pass it out today. Yesterday on the approach to the important Col de Neronne, the peloton rode an extremely high pace into the climb and van Aert was leading out the Visma teammates including stage winner Jonas Vingegaard. He completely overcooked a corner and steered off road, hitting the deck and losing contact with the peloton. He made it to the finish after riding together with Christophe Laporte, 30 minutes down on his teammate.
“I’ll be happy if I make it to the finish. Now that I’ve slept well, I have more confidence. What are my plans then? I'm just a mere mortal at the moment. I'll be happy if I make it to the finish line," he assures for stage 12. It is unlikely that any of the Visma riders will sprint today, specially as Vingegaard's chances of winning the Tour seemed to increase this Wednesday.
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