Visma look into the causes for Wout van Aert's 2024 crashes - "He was the only one to fall in a place where he had been several times before. How is that possible?"
Cycling
Wout van Aert's 2024 season was hellish and much of that due to the constant crashes that have not only hindered him from getting results, but provided several obstacles to improving his form and quality. The situation became bad enough that Team Visma | Lease a Bike began analyzing what was the cause behind the Belgian's mishaps.
"It happened so often that it wouldn't have been right if we had dismissed it as just bad luck," DS Mathieu Heijboer said in conversation with NOS. "The crash in Dwars door Vlaanderen could not have been prevented, but during the crash in the Tour de France he was riding alone at the front and misjudged a bend. If he had been a bit more concentrated there, he would have kept that bend".
The Belgian experienced a spring-ending crash in the very same race he starts this Wednesday, which took him out of the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Giro d'Italia. At the Tour de France he crashed, at the Olympic Games he fell after matching Mathieu van der Poel on the climbs; and then after regaining his best form he also crashed out of the Vuelta a España after winning three stages and carrying both points and KOM jerseys into the final week. Not only physically but mentally it has taken a toll, and when it comes to positioning van Aert seems to be struggling during the ongoing season.
"Another example was the crash at the Olympic Games, where he was in the group with Van der Poel. There too he was the only one to fall in a place where he had been several times before. How is that possible?" Heijboer questions. "Also a bit of loss of concentration at that moment."
Today at Dwars door Vlaanderen van Aert has his final opportunity to show good legs ahead of the Tour of Flanders, after struggling through the E3 Saxo Classic where he wasn't able to be in contention for a top result. "He was able to really rest and he feels better about it now. But of course, it's mainly the classics in which he has to do it. Those are such specific competitions, you can't imitate them," he concluded.
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Gearing up for today’s important race! 🇧🇪😎 pic.twitter.com/UZWANe1vFa
I’d advise doing brain scans during max efforts, you never know, he may be having micro blackouts without realising it at the time and with a crash you tend not to remember it after either. Like when you nod off a split second while driving, or realise you can’t remember any details from the last few km.
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- I don’t know how generalised it is but in every race in every country I’ve participated in you either need to show a club licence (which you only get by having a medical around every 2-3 years) or by having a doctors’ aptitude certificate. Can’t ask for much more. Don’t forget, 15000 people (of which quite some are well into the latter part of life), that’s a small town where people will have medical issues every day even without cycling hard. In one country I lived in you even have to do a full ECG and power test regularly to ride competitively after 50.Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Before or after their kids get married to each other ;-)Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Ok guys, both of you, this is far too complex to debate as a whole as there are dozens of variables and none of the conditions have been rigidly defined, what’s more, everyone is looking at things from a different angle and for a different purpose so let’s go back to the real basics first to see if we can agree on some starting principles. If you throw a golf ball or ping pong ball (assuming same size here) at the same speed in the same direction, which is going to land further? Ditto if you launch them with the same power? If two identical riders of 70 and 80kg (lets assume the extra 10kg is just bones and drinks and lunch) on identical bikes ride side by side at speed X with zero wind (or alternatively a really strong head wind) and both stop pedalling at the same time, which is going to roll further or come to a stop sooner? The wind force does inevitably come into play but I want to keep an open mind as to the effect it has in situ in practice because it obviously isn’t the only criteria and with acem82’s example it’s highly likely that wind is more minor but that wouldn’t be true for every real-life situation. Regarding cobbles, that’s an extremely complex motion to analyse, you can call it bouncing or hopping or climbing or what you like but in reality it’s indescribable and only high precision analysis can tell you exactly how much of each effect is contributing for each rider at each speed and every tire pressure/behaviour, you will NEVER manage to say that one criteria alone governs the whole efficiency equation.Mistermaumau05-04-2025
- Medical test should be mandatory before participationabstractengineer05-04-2025
- You are completely wrongvappaxbipmv05-04-2025
- Tadej has a little more chance. It will be an exciting race and the most important thing is that no one gets hurt.
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".maria2024202405-04-2025
- Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025