Although his year has been far from optimal so far in 2024, things went well for Wout van Aert in one of his targeted races on Saturday afternoon in the men's individual time trial at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games as the Belgian cycling superstar secured a bronze medal.
In a thrilling fight for the gold medal, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider finished the tricky, wet and slippery Paris course in a time of 36:37. As Van Aert then waited in the hotseat for his big rivals to come home, European time-trial champion Joshua Tarling slipped to just 2 seconds slower. Although first Filippo Ganna and then Van Aert's Belgian compatriot and gold medal winner Remco Evenepoel went quicker, a bronze medal was secured for the 29-year-old.
Potentially the key factor in holding off Great Britain's Tarling in the fight for bronze, was the fact Van Aert took the risk of having a rare dual disc set up on his time trial bike. “I was only a couple of seconds faster than Tarling. We can say that’s because of the front disc wheel. There weren’t many risks by using it. I felt comfortable, I tested it a lot and it gave me confidence,” he judged himself afterwards in conversation with Sporza.
Having taken the night to sleep on his achievements and the let the bronze medal win settle, Van Aert took to his official Instagram account to post a bullish nine word report of his efforts. "Sometimes you do need a plan AND big balls," Van Aert writes, cheekily playing on the controversial comments made by Evenepoel at the recent Tour de France, in which he claimed Van Aert's Team Visma | Lease a Bike teammate Jonas Vingegaard lacked the balls to work with the Soudal - Quick-Step leader and Tadej Pogacar whilst on the attack.
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