"More than before, my right leg is now my weakest" - Is Wout van Aert suffering from long-term effects of crash-savaged 2024?
CyclingWednesday, 05 March 2025 at 13:58
Wout van Aert has made a slow start to the 2025 road season, not yet hitting the heights that has come to be expected of the Team Visma | Lease a Bike superstar. After his crash-savaged season in 2024 though, just staying upright could be seen as Van Aert's biggest positive of the campaign so far.
After the now-30-year-old saw his Spring ended prematurely last year by a nasty crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Van Aert fought his way back to full fitness and really began to find his best form at the Vuelta a Espana. Sadly though, after taking three stage wins and building a considerable lead in the points classification, disaster struck again on stage 16, ending his Grand Tour and he season as a whole.
Whilst he's keen to not use these crashes as an excuse for his quiet start to 2024, Van Aert admits there have been some long-term effects beginning to emerge in recent times. "I hardly experience any discomfort from it anymore, but unfortunately it is an extra point of attention that we have to deal with every day," the Belgian explains to Het Nieuwsblad, detailing knee problems felt since his Vuelta crash in September. "More than before, my right leg is now my weakest leg. Let's just say that I certainly didn't get better from that crash. But in the spring it can no longer be an excuse."
And although finishes of 11th at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and 75th at Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne were far below what a Van Aert at his best would come to expect, the Belgian is still largely optimistic about the remainder of his Spring following Opening Weekend. "It was really good to be back on the road racing," he concludes. "I also needed to throw myself back into it and enjoy it."
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- I'm sure in the Giro you will be brilliant... (maybe fight for GC? this Giro is soft). I can't wait! I will go to watch and cheer for you!
maria2024202419-04-2025 - C’mon, she « married » an infidel, the hijab is just the missing cherry on their fatwa cake ;-)Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Its not the innovations. The top speed is decided by the top riders. MVDP, Pogi, Pedersen all started the hostilities on the Arenberg but it also ended there. In the past the Arenberg was just the start for the first selection and with attrition it kept reducing till the finaleabstractengineer19-04-2025
- She does not wear the Hijab. So doubt they will be very welcomed by the orthodox communityabstractengineer19-04-2025
- I would say that most people would rather see an exciting or strategic race than a boring one with record average speed. Proof of this is that people have rarely complained about a past race being slow but often that it was boring. Fast speeds are often the result of wind direction though it may be true that headwinds or tailwinds influence the way a race is run and on average one may result in more interesting outcomes than the other. Obviously a high speed can become a talking point but that’s about it. I doubt any spectator could tell the difference between riders averaging 43 or 45km/h as they go past so if it weren’t for the data being presented (often wrong anyway like the gaps between different riders) on screen, no-one would know or even try to guess.Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Agree with the first part totally, not the second. It may not be a perfect solution or needed for everyone but what’s wrong with protecting non fully developed kids? It starts when they’re born when you instinctively know you shouldn’t try to make them stand or put them in push-up positions as they’re not ready strength, bone shape or -resistance wise (amongst many things). You don’t send small kids with huge backpacks full of books to school and you don’t expect teens to lumber around building sites chucking cement sacks. There were good reasons for this and the gearing issue was a result of this, especially considering the frail stature of cyclists in general. HOWEVER, the rule has been abandoned as being unnecessary. The original idea wasn’t bad for kids in general but what it overlooked was that by the time kids actually reach the level to enter junior race level and compete seriously, they’ve done enough training to strengthen their mechanisms and over enough time for bone composition to adapt to new loads so they are unlikely to get injured from excessive loads as no-one can push more than a certain human power and they’ve worked their way close to that already. If you think it was overkill, fine but reflect on this, I trained for and had done several marathons and one day decided to enter the first edition of our local one. Despite being used to and perfectly prepared, I was in pain for weeks after and a year later the local media was full of reports of an explosion or injury related visits to doctors post-race by participants. What nobody realised in advance was that the course was very demanding on joints as much of it was in the city centre with short straights and sharp corners with pavements to mount so you were constantly also stepping up and down and leaning hard, just to show how sensitive you can be to new solicitation on the body.Mistermaumau19-04-2025
- Let us know when he beats a quality field of sprinters!frieders319-04-2025
- Agreed. What is the point of this? The pros should just start a new league and break away from the UCI. Let it sinkmij19-04-2025
- Who even cares? It’s the goal of a bike race to ride as fast as possible? And that’s what we want to see?? This is maybe the dumbest article ever.mij19-04-2025
- This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. It's an advantage to the person who does his best power at the highest RPM. This rule was dumb in junior races and would be dumb at the pro level.acem8219-04-2025