VIDEO: Wout van Aert sits down for in-depth discussion on his plans for 2024 with Team Visma | Lease a Bike

Already with two wins under his belt in 2024, Wout van Aert has sat down for an extended interview with Team Visma | Lease a Bike's YouTube channel to discuss his plans for the rest of the season and his change in approach to this year.

Van Aert hasn't actually raced since winning  Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne at the end of February, an unusually long gap in action for the Belgian superstar at this point in the season. "Normally this is the period when I race a lot. So yes, in a nutshell, you could almost say that training is actually finished at this point," van Aert begins. "I just hope to take one last step forward with some races and recover as best as possible each time."

It turns out, the choice for a quieter opening to the season was one van Aert decided on himself. "I've noticed before that that's actually difficult to maintain my best shape, especially for a longer period of time," he explains. "Now I am going to start one last big training block and switch to races much shorter from my big goals. So that is indeed a very different approach. It will be much more through training that I try to be ready for the biggest races."

"In a training camp you can control much more what incentives you get, especially on altitude camp, I always have very good experiences with that, so I am confident," he continues. "The big goal of the team and myself is to make history. Sometimes that sounds very weighty or abstract but if we go back to the Opening Weekend, it's nice that we just dared to attack with the whole team together to really take control of the race and to have so many good riders in front who still understand each other."

Watch the conversation in full down below!