"The reality is that I haven't won the Ronde and Roubaix yet" - Wout van Aert willing to take risks to win big

Wout van Aert started his season early and moved onto the Opening Weekend where he didn't show his best form, but showed the appropriate level for February - winning Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne and finishing on the podium of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Now he's looking to reach his form peak, but through training and not racing.

"Always staying in the comfort zone is the easiest thing, but the reality is that I haven't won the Ronde and Roubaix yet," van Aert shared with Het Laatste Nieuws. "That may not always have had to do with myself, but I did have the feeling that I could be even better during those two weekends than was the case in previous years.”

Hence this year the Belgian tries out a new plan. He will not race Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico unlike previous years - and in the process also Milano-Sanremo, as he goes all in for the cobbled monuments: “I always considered Tirreno-Adriatico and Paris-Nice as preparation races. But actually they are too tough races to see them purely as preparation. So it is only an advantage not to ride them," he states. 

Whether this will prove to be a winning strategy or not remains to be seen, but it's safe to say the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider has already gotten a lot of intensity in the legs. He will try to arrive fresher at the cobbles, not having one of the stage-races in the legs. Mathieu van der Poel - although in a very different winter racing plan - will do the same thing, only starting his season at Milano-Sanremo and specifically racing the one-day events all throughout the spring.