Thijs Zonneveld: "Van Aert's injuries are the main reason the gap between him and Van der Poel and Pogacar has grown so large"

As the gaps between many riders over the past years (excluding the obvious figures) have diminished, smaller details began to matter more and more. Being able to get through the years mostly injury and illness-free is now a major contributor to any rider's success at the very top level, and Wout van Aert does not have it, which is a big reason why he's not been able to evolve like Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar.

"It had all the air of poetic tragedy: here we go again... He was just going to ride a few cyclocross races to regain some explosiveness and technique," Zonneveld said on the In de Waaier podcast. "It's not a massive ankle fracture, but a small crack. Normally, his spring season wouldn't be jeopardized. It will just cost him a few more weeks".

However it is once again a race against time for the Belgian, and most likely his spring campaign will be affected by it. He will most likely spend at least two weeks off the bike, and will lose important training time in the winter, but with only four months left towards his main goals.

"It's important now not to fall too far behind. There's a bit of cramping going on sometimes." Most likely he will still be able to reach his best form, but another period of time without meaningful training will ultimately grow the gap between him and his rivals who are at this point of year putting in long hours on the bike. This adds to his problems with positioning, which have also come as a result of his many crashes.

Zonneveld has brought forward a point that has become clear over the past few years. Whilst Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel's dominance is unlikely to change this year, that is also much due to their ability to prevent meaningful injuries that take time away from their training programs.

The same can't be said of Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel who are perhaps Pogacar's strongest rivals; and Van Aert for van der Poel who has over the past two seasons crashed and become ill many times at key points of the season.

"Not getting sick, not falling, staying resilient and being able to continue developing... Van Aert hasn't had that in recent years, of course. There were so many setbacks, which Van der Poel and Pogacar haven't experienced to such an extreme degree," the Dutch pundit argues.

"For Van Aert, it's the umpteenth time, and that has consequences. Instead of building on this winter, it's another three weeks or a month of no or less training".

And it becomes hard to see Van Aert match the two again this spring taking into consideration another setback, whilst on the short term, it has prevented him from having a direct head-to-head fight with Mathieu van der Poel in cyclocross and also excludes him from the World Championships.

Mads Pedersen remains the only one of the big figures in the peloton besides the 'big two' who has remained relatively healthy throughout the past few years, and his rise through the classics ranks was very visible this year, as outside of Pogacar, the Dane was the one closest to van der Poel.

"Van Aert's injuries are the main reason the gap between him and Van der Poel and Pogacar has grown so large. Van der Poel has been able to constantly develop; he's truly a machine now. With Van Aert, it's just copy and paste."