OFFICIAL: Wout van Aert returns to racing as lines up for Visma at Le Samyn 2026

Wout van Aert has had an extremely unlucky start to the year but now, with a month left to the Tour of Flanders, it might be time for the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider to finally get back on track. He is now confirmed to be racing Le Samyn this Tuesday, where he will return to racing.

This Monday marks the two-month mark since his crash at the Exact Cross Mol, where he was racing alongside Mathieu van der Poel but slipped in a patch of ice, breaking his ankle in the fall. Whilst it was not overly costly for his training schedule, it removed a few weeks of quality training and racing whilst making his everyday life difficult as he could not walk regularly for several weeks.

He travelled to Sierra Nevada for an altitude camp with the team for three weeks, although on several days training outdoors was not possible in the midst of a snowstorm as Western Europe was affected by a once-in-a-generation sequence of storms and meteorological depressions.

Since, he has come back down from altitude but he then fell ill which led him to have to skip Omloop het Nieuwsblad, where he would've been testing his form and also been one of the candidates for victory. Visma then won Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne with Mattew Brennan; and the team now has momentum to carry onto Le Samyn.

Van Aert has been confirmed by the race organizers to be participating, ending the doubts on his current health status. He will join Christophe Laporte and together, they form a duo that is likely to be the one to beat on the Belgian semi-classic. He will follow that up with Strade Bianche later this weekend, before going through a heavy racing schedule ahead of the monuments where he will be racing with the goal of obtaining a victory this spring.