Sincere Wout van Aert struggles through 2025 road debut: "I'm certainly not bad, but I felt that I wouldn't win"
Cycling
Wout van Aert raced the cyclocross World Championships two weeks ago, and afterwards took some rest. This Monday afternoon, he began to build on his spring campaign at the Clásica Jaén Paraiso Interior, but the lack of great form saw him instead working for Briton Ben Tulett instead of chasing a personal result.
“I didn’t have the best legs and was quickly on the limit a few times in the final. Unfortunately, as a team we were also chasing the facts too quickly. There should always have been someone with Michal Kwiatkowski. Sepp (Kuss, ed.), Ben (Tulett, ed.) or me. But I just had a difficult moment." van Aert told Het Laatste Nieuws.
Ever since the riders entered the many gravel sectors, the race was out of control for the Dutch team. INEOS Grenadiers and UAE Team Emirates - XRG both had plenty quality riders in the main group, whilst both also had riders in the head of the race who attacked early with Michal Kwiatkowski and Brandon McNulty.
Van Aert and Visma were forced to take most of the workload. And a mishap right before the gravel began made life even harder for the Belgian: "That meant I wasn't really well positioned. I had to waste some energy to survive the first selection, but with good legs that wouldn't have been a problem".
As the group chased on the head of the race, van Aert realized the team's best card was in Ben Tulett who also wouldn't be too covered by their rivals, and so he hit the wind himself for many kilometers, sacrificing his own chances. "I'm certainly not bad, but I felt that I wouldn't win. Then I'd rather try to close the gap for a good result for Ben." The Briton rode to ninth on the day whilst van Aert was 39th.
“I had the feeling that Ben was our best man, but lacked some confidence. That's why I encouraged him to save himself for the final and I tried to do something for him. It's not a bad start, but it was a tough race," he concluded.
🇪🇸 #ClásicaJaén
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) February 17, 2025
Tough, but decent start of the season for the guys out there! ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/RoxKL8hs31
after 2nd in cross and all the hard training the last few weeks, I expected more. is he doing too much too soon for basically nothing? while MVDP skis.
No, they’re at different stages of the build-up cycle.. Besides, I wouldn’t read too much into the cross result, it’s a lot faster to build up form to a short more dynamic race than real endurance which needs more time. That doesn’t mean that part is detrimental as a base. If you use athletics as an analogy, the cross is 400m, classics are middle-distance and Tours are marathons, for the middle-distance you need your speed from 400 and endurance from marathon, you can get your basic speed back up pretty quick and then it stays with you whilst you add endurance.
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- Let me help you. Alfredo BindaUpHill31-03-2025
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leedorney31-03-2025 - Gaio Primus Caesar Roglus, Rome is waiting for you, Imperator :-)).
maria2024202431-03-2025 - 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
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