"My absolute main goals are three months away" - Wout van Aert shifts focus away from cyclocross as he ends dense racing block

The X2O Trofee Badkamers Koksijde was the final big cross of Wout van Aert's Christmas block schedule. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider has raced all his cyclocross events but one, and now will take rest and begin to focus on the road season ahead.

“I feel that I started my Christmas period with much less fitness. It was a very tough and fun period. There were a lot of people at the cross and I enjoyed that immensely. Physically it was adapting to the legs that allowed what I was able to show. That is different from other years, but we knew that in advance," van Aert shared with Wielerflits. "Ever since I got my number, I want to do the best I can. I've always done that. That resulted in nice places of honor, but few victories.”

Unfortunately for him, he was met with a very strong Mathieu van der Poel that he could not match in any race, unlike last year. A difficult winter results wise for the Belgian, but not something that was of concern to him as he did not arrive with his best form. Using cyclocross as preparation for next spring, he now takes a step back to recover from the last few weeks of effort.

“I have already taken a nice step forward, but I need days of rest," he continues. A training camp with the Dutch team follow. He will still race the Benidorm World Cup on the 21st of January, and from there on have nothing but the road season ahead where he has big goal for the spring. "Then we will continue to build progressively. My absolute main goals are three months away, which is still a while. There is still a lot of work to be done.”