Wout van Aert enters Paris-Roubaix as one of the pre-race favourites. If the Belgian is victorious at the Hell of the North, van Aert has revealed he will have done so in honour of his former teammate Michael Goolaerts who sadly died at Paris-Roubaix in 2018.
"The last thing I want is for Michael to be forgotten," van Aert tells HLN. “If I win Roubaix, I definitely intend to. For me there are only two people to whom the victory flowers belong... Staf and Marianne, Michael's parents. I hope it works. There's a victory gesture in honor of Michael in my head. I know I shouldn't say this, but if I win, preferably with a solo and not after a sprint, so that I have time in the last meters to think about Michael."
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The fact van Aert is so open about his grief is commendable. The Jumbo-Visma star reveals he still thinks about Goolaerts often. "By not talking about certain things, I think the problem is not there or at least it is circumvented," says van Aert. "However, I realize that I am doing Michael's family a disservice by not talking about it."
Runner-up last year on the French cobbles, van Aert is yet to taste success at Paris-Roubaix, something he is keen to change. "I find it especially frustrating that after that first Roubaix I thought: 'I'm going to use what happened to Michael as extra motivation to win here one day and it won't take long," he says. "Well, the following year I crashed three times, then it was postponed by Covid... I've never passed through the Bos van Wallers without a material breakdown. For now, that course is cursed for me. It hasn't lasted a single edition, so I haven't been able to show the tribute to Michael that has been in my head for a long time. That eats away at me somehow."
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