Positioning is van Aert's problem according to Johan Bruyneel: "Wout is suffering mentally to be ahead because all these finishes are a war zone"

Johan Bruyneel talked about another day of the Giro d'Italia 2025 on The Move podcast. The former US Postal sports director turned the spotlight back on Wout van Aert to explain why he was not part of the Visma trio to try to win for an Olav Kooij who could not get past second place despite being the a favorite to take the win in Lecce.

The Belgian makes it clear that if his compatriot is not acting as a luxury domestique, it is not because he does not want to, but because he cannot:

"If you know Wout van Aert, he's a model rider and if he knows he can't win by himself, which I think at the moment he has decided he has to improve physically because of his injury, he will do everything he can to help his teammates and be the last one in the bunch. It will be Affini, then Wout and then Kooij, I have absolutely no doubt that he would do it if he could, we don't know if he can't do it physically or mentally at the moment."

Bruyneel goes further and explains that the numerous crashes Van Aert has suffered in recent months may have affected his performance in the sprints:

"We didn't see Wout at the end of the race, we don't know if it's a lack of form, he would agree with me that he's not in optimal form, we've had him a few times when it's been hard that he hasn't been able to respond or hasn't been able to be where he's expected to be, something tells me that. I don't know, after the crashes and the bad luck, it seems like he's not with the fire to fight there, I don't know if he doesn't want to take risks or if he's afraid to take risks."

He returns to the start of the classics to develop his theory on what might be happening to Wout van Aert at the start of the Giro d'Italia 2025:

"It's something we've already seen in the first spring classics, where he was having positioning problems. At the time I thought it was a lack of legs, that he didn't have power. But I'm starting to change my mind about it, I think there might be a problem with him not wanting or not being able to take risks anymore. After many crashes it gets to you, it's happened many many times and sometimes that gets to you and you see danger everywhere. So you have to consider if Wout is suffering mentally to be ahead because all these finishes are a war zone and I think Wout doesn't want to be in the war at the moment and I can understand that."