Pogacar would have won the Tour if not for "Superman" Wout van Aert according to former UAE staff member Aart Vierhouten
CyclingFriday, 30 December 2022 at 16:15
After Jonas Vingegaard's stunning dethroning of Tadej Pogacar at the 2022 Tour de France, Aart Vierhouten, a former member of UAE Team Emirates support car, has described the Dane's teammate, Wout van Aert as "Superman."
Looking back at the race, Vierhouten describes how Jumbo-Visma were ultimately handed a massive stroke of luck when Primoz Roglic suffered a fall. "They were actually lucky that Roglic fell, so in that stage they could do nothing but choose Jonas as the first leader,” says the 52-year-old former rider. “If they had postponed that choice, it would have played into our hands.”
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Vierhouten, who has since left UAE Team Emirates to become team manager at Q36.5 in the coming year, believes another stroke of luck Jumbo-Visma benefited from was the fact that Wout van Aert switched concentration from stage wins to helping Vingegaard after securing his points classification victory.
"Tadej was good, but we were unlucky to meet a superman that day who went by the name of Wout van Aert . He took the lead ahead of Vingegaard and closed a gap of two minutes on Pogacar in the last twenty kilometers,” Vierhouten said of the fifth stage where the Dane had mechanical issues and didn't lose time following van Aert's work to bring him back to the peloton.
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“Had Van Aert been in the leading group with Pogacar, Jumbo-Visma would not have known what to do: let Wout wait or try to win the stage? Then we would have won the Tour there. Because without Van Aert, Vingegaard would have fallen behind Pogacar, which he could never have made up for in the mountain stages," Vierhouten believes.
The differences were eventually made on stage 11, but van Aert continued to be instrumental in the team's yellow dream, frequently taking part in breakaways which eventually kept Vingegaard safe with teammates ahead, demotivating Pogacar to attack.
Furthermore, on the summit finish to Hautacam van Aert did a massive pull in the front launching the yellow jersey into victory, before he himself won the final time-trial in green.
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Not sure we will see Wout's accomplishments at the last two tours ever again. Among the highlights:
-- winning 3 of the last 11 stages in 2021, famously including a mountain stage, a TT, and a sprint
-- Finishing 1,1,2,2,2,1 over a six stage stretch end of 2021/beginning of 2022
-- one of the great solo victories in the modern TDF on stage 4 into Calais
-- Saving Jonas's entire race with the above-mentioned "superman" pull on stage 5
-- Serving as the rider up the road on stage 11 that forced Pogacar to follow the attacks over Telegraphe
-- Pulling Jonas to the finale of stage 18, breaking Pogacar in the process
-- Setting the record for Green Jersey points
Among the best individual riders in recent tours, and far and away the best domestique.