Richard Plugge on Wout van Aert: "His resilience is one of his strongest points. That will make him come back even stronger"

Wout van Aert is back home after a few days at the Herentals hospital. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider is in constant contact with members of the team and team manager Richard Plugge assures that he is already thinking of his comeback to the bike.

“I visited him in the hospital on Friday and we had telephone contact yesterday,. He is now back home and considering the circumstances, he is doing well, as you say," Richard Plugge shared with Wielerflits. "But of course it was a terrible fall. Everything was about today and next week. We have to make new plans now, once he has recovered. That is the priority now. We have to work together to ensure that he can recover well. It looks like everything will turn out well, but we need to recalibrate.”

Van Aert suffered several fractures which required a surgery in the night of the crash, and will likely require also several weeks off the bike. Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are out of the picture, but perhaps the Giro d'Italia is not taking into consideration Plugge's words: “He is already looking forward to the moment when he can get back on track and train for the next competitions. Mentally he is in good shape. It is up to everyone that we do this at the right time and in the right way. He's jumping."

"Has he already put the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix aside and is looking ahead to next summer? It's not that far yet," however. "For the time being, he really needs to recover, he is well aware of that. We must first give that a chance. Only then can we make plans. But he really wants it again, so that's very nice. His resilience is one of his strongest points. That will make him come back even stronger.”

Van Aert is not an unknown to large adversity and injuries, but arguably this was the one that has came at the worst possible timing. The Dutch team is also very far from it's best, also lacking Christophe Laporte and Jan Tratnik which were initially expected to be part of the hostilities in Flanders.

As previously said by other team members, Plugge reaffirms that there is not thought of a comeback date yet: “We really have to look at that later. It just happened, he just got back from the hospital. We have to see how long it takes him to recover. We have no idea about that yet. We really need to let this take one or two weeks before we can make a plan for it. That is really not possible at the moment," he concludes.