"It won't be a pure bunch sprint" - Wout van Aert favourite for first Maillot Jaune of 2024 Tour de France says Jan Bakelants
Cycling
As seen at the most recent Giro d'Italia, chances to wear the leader's jersey at a Grand Tour can be few and far between. With the opening stage of the 2024 Tour de France now just days away, talk of the first stage and the first Maillot Jaune are a hot topic on the lips of cycling experts.
Speaking on the podcast Wuyts & Vlaeminck, ex-pro, former Tour de France stage winner and Maillot Jaune wearer for two days, Jan Bakelants has named his fellow Belgian Wout van Aert as the favourite to take the opening stage of the 2024 Tour de France. "He has to consider every stage as a classic to try to win as much as possible. Winning himself, yes," Bakelants begins. "It won't be a pure bunch sprint in Rimini, but I don't think the real climbers will attack each other there either. A scenario is expected of a sprint with thirty people and I don't see a scenario in which Wout will not be among the first thirty. Then he will not have anyone of his calibre in that group."
Joining Bakelants was Belgian cycling expert Michel Wuyts and in his opinion, van Aert isn't the only name to mention in consideration with the Maillot Jaune. "Michael Matthews could," he proposes. "But still... If we consult the statistics and look back at how often Matthews has beaten Wout in the sprint... Wout can win those kinds of stages with a final on a downward trend at 95 percent."
After van Aert's spring ended abruptly with a crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Belgian returned to racing with a positive showing at the Tour of Norway. Then, after a spell at altitude alongside the likes of Jonas Vingegaard and Christophe Laporte, van Aert took on the Belgian National Championships last week, finishing 5th as Arnaud De Lie took the tricolor.
"He has grown enormously by riding the Tour of Norway," Bakelants assesses of van Aert following the Belgian championship road race. "In the sprint, no one came out ahead against De Lie. That start was apparently so scorching. Philipsen also had to remain seated at the wheel."
What is the definition of the best sprinter, another of those weird needs people have to build their own truth. In the current set-up it is impossible to say who is best, and even then, it changes too fast and often to be important. It is also not always the strongest who wins as much depends on team, lead-out man and position, all of which are by and large independent of the sprinter himself. Just enjoy the racing and hope no-one crashes or plays dirty.
Lets hope breakaway prevails. If Wout wins the first stage after so much time off the bike . The rumour mill about Visma will start again. All that baking soda will not get you over the mountains or in Visma team it does.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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- Wout Van Aert won a Monument (San Remo, 2020), so he wouldn't be in that article. He might be in an article of riders like Sagan who were truly exceptional and won fewer monuments that expected. As for these two, they've won the last 7 monuments, 10 of the last 12, 15 of the last 20. Merckx and de Vlaeminck weren't that dominant in their era. It really is special the way these two race with such admiration for each other along the way. Rivals, not enemies.RidesHills14-04-2025
- So drunk Belgians will always target MvDP because they are drunk. That can't be right. If drunk Belgians target all other cyclist equally, then it may be reasonable.
KerisVroom14-04-2025 - Nobody cares about this nonsense.
Front24214-04-2025 - Thanks! Hadn’t heard of that word so would have been hard to search very specifically without your input.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Ok, that’s this year’s gold medal for classy comments :-)Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- of course it’s predictable. a dad is proud of his son. nothing else matters, and his dad was a celebrated rider in his own right. maybe if people respected the human side of this story, and these people, we would see fewer bidons thrown. lastly as a dad, I appreciate this. a dad should have be given grief for showing pride and love for his child. we need more dads and examples like Adriemij14-04-2025
- i willfully CHOOSE to believe in your theory about greatness being sharpened and driven by greatness, because in my ideal world that’s how i’d wish it to be. in this case, with mathieu in particular, i think the presence of first wout then tadej absolutely drives and consumes him to some degree. he’s a guy who admittedly gets BORED. and when mathieu gets bored he just goes and does something else. he’s very clear about the fact there are a BUNCH of things he just doesn’t really care about, and i think anyone who follows him has a sense that MVDP is here for a GOOD TIME, not a LONG TIME. my hope is that tadej’s greatness will keep mathieu focused and hungry. very sadly, wout no longer fills that role. he may again and i hope he does, but their career trajectories are going in different directions and have been for a few years now. i will be extremely sad for the truly SPECTACULAR van aert if his line MSR win is the only monument trophy on his mantle. at very least i want ONE roubaix cobblestone sitting next to it. he deserves to tell the story when the grandkids ask “why is there a big rock sitting up there, papa?”OCexile14-04-2025
- Why? He is being too hard on himself. No sane person will blame him if he stopped there and then.KerisVroom14-04-2025
- You can find a quick explantion by searching for "finish line camera howtown". The camera only captures the vertical line. The photo that we see is a composite of vertical lines.KerisVroom14-04-2025
- Let us not go off the deep end for a start it us not attempted murder. At most common assault. Country dependent. Yes horrible to see and ob not a real fan of the sport or just a VDP hater. This has been going on for years look at Froome in the TDF and other sports such as football. That is soccer to the North Americans. Let the police do there job and hope the offender gets what is coming to him or even her.paultryan200214-04-2025