"There is no reason to worry about Wout van Aert" - Johan Bruyneel expects Visma star will peak for Tour of Flanders

After a shortened cyclocross winter, Wout van Aert returned to the road on Monday at the 2025 Clásica Jaén Paraiso Interior. Despite showing good legs at the Cyclocross World Championships, finishing 2nd though, that form didn't immediately translate to success on the road, as Van Aert finished six minutes down in 39th in Spain.

Afterwards, Team Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Arthur van Dongen admitted that they had hoped for better from the Belgian. "We certainly expected more," the DS explained honestly in conversation with Het Nieuwsblad post-race. "We did not travel here for such a result."

According to former team boss Johan Bruyneel though, Visma and Van Aert fans shouldn't be getting too downhearted by this slow start to the road campaign for the 30-year-old. "There is no reason to worry about Van Aert," the Belgian insists on his The Move podcast. "He just finished a training camp in Mallorca. I don't know exactly how he trained there. You would expect him to fight for the win in Jaén, but those guys are not machines either."

"You can't draw far-reaching conclusions after the first race. Maybe he had a bad night? There can always be something going on," Bruyneel continues, insisting that for the big goals later in the Spring, Van Aert will be coming into his peak form. "Maybe I'm defending my compatriot a bit, but I'm sure he'll be there in April. It'll be a while before the Tour of Flanders is held, right? The men who want to win there aren't in top form yet."

Evaluating his own performance, Van Aert was realistic post-race. “I didn’t have the best legs and was quickly on the limit a few times in the final," he admitted honestly. "I'm certainly not bad, but I felt that I wouldn't win... It's not a bad start, but it was a tough race," he concluded.