"I'm little bit longing for the end of season" - Wout van Aert admits a lack of motivation with no big goals after Tour

Wout Van Aert's season got back on track in Germany last week with ADAC Hambrug Classic and Lidl Deutschland Tour. But despite his imminent presence in the races, the Belgian was unable to leave a bigger mark in the result sheets, partly due to teammate duties. Van Aert was important piece of puzzle in Visma | Lease a Bike sprinter gem Matthew Brennan's two stage wins.

"What I'd already noticed in Hamburg, I'd seen again here," Van Aert started briefly in an interview at Het Nieuwsblad. "After the Tour de France, I'd taken a step back. And if you don't have the legs to do anything in the final, you're disappointed. On the other hand, I've enjoyed it here these past few days."  

"My legs felt better every day," he says. "I needed this stage race for that. This certainly gives me the motivation to keep pushing myself in the coming month."

With the Bretagne Classic, the Canadian WT Classics in Québec and Montreal, and the SUPER 8 Classic, there's still some more racing to do before well-deserved holidays at the end of the season. "I hope to be able to show a little more than I did here in Germany," Van Aert said about his ambitions for upcoming races.

"But the situation is very different this year. In the past, the Tour often led to a few major goals: the Olympics, the World Championships, or – after all my injuries last year – the Vuelta. After my busy spring, I figured things would be a bit less exciting this time. It's mainly a mental issue. The Tour was more or less the end point of this season for me. Afterward, I'd see what I wanted to do. But that's not the right motivation to start training again in early August. You just feel it."

"I'm probably a little bit longing for the end of the season," Van Aert admits. "All those statements (from Tim Merlier and Tadej Pogacar, among others, ed.) don't surprise me. It's perfectly normal to need a change of pace after a tough period of racing. Every rider will agree with that."