“My biggest dream is simply a carefree season” – After years of disruption, Wout van Aert hopes for peace in 2026

Wout van Aert is not chasing a slogan in 2026. He is chasing relief and a break from the bad luck that has consistenly hindered him over recent years.

After several seasons shaped as much by crashes, illness and forced interruptions as by podiums and victories, the Visma leader has reduced his biggest ambition to something simple.

“My biggest dream is simply a carefree season,” he said in Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s official press release setting out his and the rest of the team's 2026 plans.

Not carefree in the sense of easy. Carefree in the sense of uninterrupted.

Van Aert’s recent seasons read like a cycle of momentum and sudden stops.

In spring 2024 he was wiped out at Dwars door Vlaanderen, suffering multiple fractures that removed him from key classics at the very moment his form was peaking. Later that year, at the Vuelta a Espana, he crashed again and was forced to abandon while leading both the points and mountains classifications, leaving Spain with a knee injury and unfinished business.

Even when the road seasons stabilised, bad luck followed him into winter. This cyclocross season ended abruptly after a heavy fall on snow while fighting Mathieu van der Poel, a crash that fractured his ankle and required surgery, closing his winter early and pushing yet another reset into his calendar.

Illness, crashes, surgeries and rebuilds have become a pattern. It is that history that gives weight to his words about simply wanting a season that is allowed to run its natural course.

Despite everything, Van Aert is not scaling back. “In the spring, I want to be there from Omloop Het Nieuwsblad all the way through to Roubaix. I want to show myself everywhere and seize every opportunity that comes my way,” he said.

For 2026, he also returns to races that matter to him emotionally. “Unlike recent seasons, I’ll be back on the start line of the Italian classics Strade Bianche and Milan–San Remo,” he explained. “I consider Strade Bianche and Milan–San Remo to be among the most beautiful races of the season, so I definitely don’t want to miss them in 2026.”

The Monuments remain the axis around which his spring turns. “Of course, monuments like Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix and Milano–Sanremo remain the main objectives of the season, but every other race I start also means a great deal to me.”

And beyond ambition, there is something more personal. “Winning a monument in 2026 would be the icing on the cake of my career.”

Van Aert does not talk about the Tour de France as a duty. He talks about it as a place where opportunity still lives. “When I look at the Tour de France route, the team time trial immediately stands out to me,” he said, recalling his first Tour in 2019, which also began with a team time trial. “We won it. That’s still a very special memory for me.”

For 2026, he sees more than just service. “For the coming season, we’ll have a strong line-up and I also see a number of opportunities to go for stage wins myself.”

After the Tour, his calendar carries emotional weight. “I still have unfinished business in the Vuelta,” he said, smiling. “It was a painful exit in 2024, but I’ll return with a lot of motivation.”

The race is more than redemption. It is preparation. “The World Championships in Canada have been on my mind for a long time. I see the Vuelta as an ideal preparation to be at my best level there.”

Van Aert is not asking the sport to be kind. He is asking it to stop being cruel.

After years defined by broken bones, surgeries, illness and interrupted momentum, the ambition underneath every target, every Monument and every Grand Tour is the same.

A season that flows. If it does, he believes everything else will come with it.