"One of my favourite races" - Wout van Aert eyeing E3 Saxo Classic hat-trick in 2025
Cycling
Tomorrow in Belgium, Wout van Aert is set to return to racing at the 2025 E3 Saxo Classic. A two-time former winner of the Classic, can the 30-year-old make it a hat-trick this year?
After riding early season races such as Clasica Jean, Volta ao Algarve, plus Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne on opening weekend, Van Aert has spent the last few weeks at altitude, building up his level for what is likely to be a crucial period in his season. “We had a good and nice training camp in Tenerife, but of course, as a cyclist, what you want most of all is racing. I'm really looking forward to pinning on a race number once again,” says Van Aert in comments to Team Visma | Lease a Bike's official website. “The E3 Saxo Classic is one of my favourite races and I am proud that I have already won it twice.”
“That's always a bit of a wait and see in such a first race after an altitude camp. You saw that last year in the E3 Saxo Classic as well," continues the Belgian, referencing his 3rd placed finish twelve months ago. "But we have a strong team, including Matteo Jorgenson who showed great things in Paris-Nice.”
More than just Van Aert, the return to the E3 Saxo Classic is also an incredibly exciting time of the season for Team Visma | Lease a Bike's sports director, Grischa Niermann. “The E3 Saxo Classic is a beautiful race over a large part of the Tour of Flanders course," previews Niermann. "Often the race is seen as a kind of dress rehearsal. For us it will be interesting to see how Wout and Tiesj Benoot feel after their altitude camp.”
“We are not the favourites, but we have to make use of the multiple options we have in our team," Niermann concludes. "We will do everything we can to be in the final with as many riders as possible.”
Read also
Team Visma | Lease a Bike for E3 Saxo Classic 2025
Wout van Aert
Matteo Jorgenson
Tiesj Benoot
Tosh van der Sande
Edoardo Affini
Dylan van Baarle
Per Strand Hagenes
💬 “As a cyclist, what you want most of all is racing.” - Wout van Aert
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) March 27, 2025
🔗 Read our race preview here! 👇https://t.co/UkPGXG6XGN
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- And he probably wasn’t even at the limit ;-) Have to wonder how much Mads could catch up if he’d tune his physique to be as sharp as MVDPs’Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Respect for giving Van Eetvelt credit there.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- He’s already a star for me for HAVING complained about it, the recent trend having been, let them then try to take advantage by making them sign NDAs ;-)Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Agreed, but if it was a radio thing then all the riders should have the same story and it would be easy to call anyone out. Kind of surprised this isn’t cleared up half officially afterwards, just like the Alaphilippe divorce, seems like once something spreads on the net it kind of gets accepted that everyone wants to have their own truth so no-one bothers to contest anything that’s verifiable anymore, we all just move on.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- maybe. what makes that a LITTLE fishy is that they suddenly hit the gas and started hammering it. even mathieu, who i’ve never heard complain about ANYTHING (other than teenage girls waking him up and being spit on by belgians) was pretty hacked off about the race tactics after the split. i think he was upset for what his teammates had to do, not for the fact he ended up isolated as a result.OCexile31-03-2025
- It seems that in E3 it wasn’t legit to criticise teams that « took advantage » because there was no radio communication about the incident so they couldn’t know to slow down. Only one source so far but should be quite easy to verify.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- mads SMOKED it at ghent! love that guy. he’s just the best interview ever, always smart and hilarious and with a biting intolerance for stupidity. happy for him. just as a secondary thought, consider that mvdp beat THAT version of mads by a full minute at E3 two days ago. the gap between pog/mvdp and even tho other GREAT riders like mads is kinda staggering to comprehend. this is a time in cycling history that’s certainly worth paying attention to while it lasts.OCexile31-03-2025
- i watched the race. jasper and roodhooft have a legit anger about this. alpecin burned everyone to pull it back. they did the SAME THING after the split in E3, burning all their guys and thus leaving mathieu to fend for himself (which worked out ok because van der poel is van der poel, but still…). yeah, christopher and jasper should be a little pissed this time.OCexile30-03-2025
- Mads, Ganna, MvdP, Pogi were all in MSR, and will all be in both RVV and PR, the problem here is Remco because he doesn't race anything. This year because of injuries, before that, no idea why notvappaxbipmv30-03-2025
- Will it take oil money to get Mads, Remco, Tadej, Ganna and MVDP to line up for the same classic or monument or will Lady Luck help us with this one.Mistermaumau30-03-2025