"This sport is not for p*ssies. This is a war" - Johan Bruyneel comments on Classic Brugge-De Panne crashes and Wout van Aert

Johan Bruyneel is very concerned about Wout van Aert after his performance not only yesterday at the E3 Saxo Classic, but so far this season. On The Move podcast he analyzed the possible reasons for his poor performances showing his concern for what he might do in his big goals, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix; but also had a controversial comment on the crashes that have taken place at the Classic Brugge-De Panne.

The Belgian classic saw four mass crashes in the final 5 kilometers, and the headbutt of Jonathan Milan to Alexander Kristoff - which did not lead to one - also caught quite a lot of attention. Already at this time, Bruyneel had a spat on X with Benji Naesen, and in the podcast he explained why he is against the comments on such incidents.

"I have a message for all the guys, all the people who judge and think they can dictate what should happen like 'ah this guy should be disqualified straight away or be banned for two weeks', here's the news: this sport is not for pussies," he said. "This is a war. If you don't push you get pushed, it's as simple as that. It's the way it is, if you want to win a race you have to focus on the line".

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Later on when discussing the E3 Saxo Classic, the Belgian pundit was not particularly impressed with Wout van Aert's absence from the action, which although not urgent at the time being, does not bode well ahead of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.

"I'm starting to get worried with Wout van Aert, you might even think ok are circumstances that after his first race after a period of not racing where he was at altitude, even taking that into account, this is not the Wout van Aert we used to see," he argues.

While Mathieu van der Poel ended up winning all 3 one-day races he rode, Van Aert's cannot be compared: he finished 39th in the Jaen Paraiso Interior Classic, 11th at Omloop Nieuwsblad and 75th in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne before being 15th yesterday in the E3. In all of them Bruyneel saw a common factor for his poor results:

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"His first races were not good. Jaen, Nieuwsblad, Kuurne, in all those first 2 Flemish classics I found it remarkable that he was extremely badly positioned in the key moments and today (yesterday) we have seen the same, I have not seen Wout van Aert in the place where Wout van Aert should be being one of the favorites."

And beyond that positioning, the former US Postal sport director is really worried about Van Aert's performance in the cobbled Monuments because he doesn't see him as having 'good legs':

"Going back to the pictures you could talk about horrible positioning, but for me it's just that he didn't have the legs to be well positioned. I hope I'm wrong because I love Wout van Aert, I'm a fan, I want him to get big wins, he deserves it, but I'm worried that he might close this condition gap in the next few weeks for Flanders and Roubaix which are his big goals. I hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't look good."

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