OFFICIAL: Wout van Aert won't ride the Tour de France in 2024... But will debut at both Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana
Cycling
The official confirmation was missing, but that is no longer the case. Wout van Aert will not participate in the Tour de France 2024. The Team Visma - Lease a Bike rider, who had been a key part of the Dutch team in the Grande Boucle in recent years, will take a different direction next season to advance his role as leader.
The decision to skip the Tour comes on the heels of the news that van Aert will participate in the other two Grand Tours of the season: the rider will be present at both the 2024 Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España. Before that, he has also set two of his sights on Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.
"The classics are my main goal," said Wout van Aert at the presentation of Visma - Lease a Bike. "Our team is stronger than last year. We lost Nathan Van Hooydonck, but we also gained a lot of strong men. My first goal is to try to win the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix."
Click
here to create your own team for the Fantasy Cycling 2024 Budget. At least $6600/€6,000/£5,200
in prizes!
About his Giro d'Italia debut, van Aert was confident: It's a lot of fun to explore the Giro for a change. I hope to win one or several stages. It's a tough race. For me it's a different approach than normal, but I'm looking forward to picking my stages."
The reason why Wout van Aert will not race in the Tour de France is due to the Olympic Games in Paris, where he hopes to arrive at full strength. A participation in the Grande Boucle would not have allowed him to prepare optimally for the fight for the gold medal.
Finally, the big news of the day that wasn't expected was the Vuelta a España. As with the Giro, van Aert has yet to make his debut in the final Grand Tour of each season. With Sepp Kuss intending to go and defend his title achieved in outstanding fashion this 2023, and Jonas Vingegaard intending to repeat as well, it is an unknown quantity for the cycling world to know what Visma - Lease a Bike's plan will be regarding its riders in terms of the fight for the general classification.
Read also
Article written by Jorge Borreguero.
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
claps 3visitors 3
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Yeah, unreal.
parisbound0008-11-2026 - there needs to be space in life for pointless comments!Ketterechts08-11-2026
- That is a very lazy way of putting it but so far on this website it seems like everyone is happy to look at everything lazily, even things that annoy them intensely. All they want to do is state their feeling and position but ask most to analyse a problem or come up with solutions or improvements and you’re stunned by silence. Nobody even really knows how this all happens. It’s very simple and quick to just say the UCI did it but I bet you they didn’t, I bet you not more than 2 people were involved, more likely just 1. The UCI may be ultimately responsible but it is not their decision, this is about hierarchy, power and delegation. The fact that protest is possible also means it isn’t over and that MORE people could get involved for a thorough review which could throw up anything. It is highly likely it was a sole commissar who decided and has that power in a first round. Therein might lie the problem the UCI has to consider, is it acceptable to give so much authority to one single person when it is quite possible for them to have a natural bias or be too easily susceptible to imposed bias. Who is to say an individual in this position isn’t susceptible to collaboration with outside players with interests in the results, nations, families, teams, betting companies, etc. On the one hand we have sports where these problems have been worked on way more to reduce such problems, on the other hand we have sports with far stricter and more draconian rules not even concerning safety or obstruction that nobody really questions like false starts or stepping out of lane or zones in athletics. If cycling hastowork on itself, it would be good if protagonists (all kinds) would start doing a little more than just moaning over outcomes.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Yes, so why not make comments less pointless?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- What a race! I didn't expect Vanthourenhout to collapse like that, and Wyseure did take the fight to Nys, but there was no doubt at the end. I also wonder what Aubin Sparfel would be capable of were he to race in the elites now. In the U23 ranks he is making good work of Giel Lejeune, who himself is among the better riders in the elites, and a top 10 contender in the big races (3rd at Kleebergcross, 8th at Berencross and 5th at Heerderstrand). In the French Cup, Sparfel is significantly better than Romain Debord (8th at Koppenbergcross and 10th at the Euros) and Rémi Lelandais (12th at Koppenbergcross and 19th at the Euros).
Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - There really was nothing in it. Schreiber was so much faster, and Brand was fighting to stay in the wheel in the sprint. Schreiber did move a bit, but to say she closed the door doesn't make sense because Brand couldn't enter it anyway, abd she wasn't impeded.Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026
- He should have been allowed to go to Movistar. Right now both arent a good fit for each other and are just wasting each other's time and effortabstractengineer08-11-2026
- Thibau Nys does exactly what Iserbyt is calling forRafionain-Glas08-11-2026
- i did not see it. was the relegation justified or an overly hard decision? and don‘t cross riders deviate from straight lines all the time? bumping into each others when they cut corners, etc … why being more strict with the rules on the finish sprint?Ketterechts08-11-2026
- seems like we are advertising the website with pointless comments…Ketterechts08-11-2026
Loading
Provisional Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Grand Tour squads: Giro d'Italia 🇧🇪 Wout van Aert 🇧🇪 Cian Uijtdebroeks 🇳🇱 Olav Kooij Tour de France 🇩🇰 Jonas Vingegaard 🇺🇸 Sepp Kuss 🇺🇸 Matteo Jorgenson Vuelta a España 🇺🇸 Sepp Kuss 🇩🇰 Jonas Vingegaard 🇧🇪 Wout van Aert 🇬🇧 Ben Tullett
1 Comments