🇪🇺 #Drenthe2023 "I started the way I wanted to. The first twenty kilometres went well, but then I lacked the power to fight for more." - Wout van Aert Read more in our report! ✍🏼
"The classics will always remain Wout's primary focus, but he will never abandon time trials" - Jumbo-Visma coach evaluates Wout Van Aert's ITT performance
CyclingFriday, 22 September 2023 at 01:00
After the World Championship time trial podium in Scotland was occupied by Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quick-Step and Filippo Ganna and Joshua Tarling of INEOS Grenadiers, the latter managed to win the European Championship in Emmen on Wednesday. Jumbo-Visma, undoubtedly the dominant time trial team in recent years, had to settle for Wout van Aert's bronze medal.
Head of Performance Mathieu Heijboer also traveled to Drenthe on behalf of the Belgian leader for additional coaching. He saw Van Aert's third-place finish as a commendable result. "I think Wout rode a solid time trial. There were some doubts after the World Championships, but I believe he delivered an excellent performance here. The in-depth analysis is still pending, but I observed that he coped well with the challenging conditions, including strong winds. He maintained his position effectively, so he will leave here with a more positive feeling than after the World Championships," he commented, referring to Van Aert's fifth-place in Stirling.
"It has been a highly emotional week, during which he also fell ill," Heijboer also noted. "That has undoubtedly affected how he is here. Tarling is nevertheless the deserved winner." The young Brit did not surprise the Jumbo-Visma time trial guru. "He was already the favorite for us and didn't start last for nothing. With what he shows here, he demonstrates a different level than the rest."
The Dutchman does not think the significant gap with winner Tarling demotivates Van Aert. "The classics will always remain Wout's primary focus, but he will never abandon time trials. It is an incredibly beautiful discipline, in which it is very motivating to stay engaged."
Read also
claps 0visitors 1940
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024