"Nobody can replace him" - Tiesj Benoot and Jasper Stuyven lament absence of Wout van Aert but fully support Remco Evenepoel in Zürich

In the men's road race at the 2024 World Championships in Zürich, the Belgian team is built solely around supporting the Rainbow Jersey ambitions of Remco Evenepoel. Among those supporting, are Tiesj Benoot and Jasper Stuyven. 

"It is clear that we will start with seven of us in Remco's service, to give everything so that Remco can decide the race and win," Benoot previews in conversation with VTM Nieuws ahead of Sunday's road race. "As Belgians, we must especially hope that Remco has his best legs, then a lot will be possible."

One man who sadly isn't going to be present at the start line in Zürich however, is Benoot's Team Visma | Lease a Bike teammate, Wout van Aert. The Belgian crashed out of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana in the third week and has not been back on his bike since. "Nobody can replace him in Belgium, if you also see that Wout can actually beat anyone in the sprint," Benoot says of his compatriot. "But we should not absolutely want to replace Wout either. Let us ride in the service of Evenepoel."

Jasper Stuyven too laments the absence of Van Aert from Belgium's lineup at the 2024 World Championships. "Look at the past Olympic Games, the best example: the only one who could follow Mathieu van der Poel there was Wout," Stuyven recalls. "That illustrates how difficult it is to replace Van Aert."

Nevertheless, Stuyven is quietly confident of taking the victory for his nation, although tactics may be slightly changed due to Van Aert's absence from the team. "In recent years, a country has tried to break open the race. That could now be Slovenia, or Italy, or maybe us," the Lidl-Trek rider previews. In the other cases, it will still be a typical World Championship situation in which a lot is possible," he concludes.