Wout van Aert devoted whole preparation to break bad luck at cobbled Monuments this spring: "He’s confident, motivated, and has trained well"

Wout van Aert turned his whole season upside down to reap success in the spring, with whole focus on just two days on the bike. The Visma | Lease a Bike star's year will resolve around Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.

"In some ways, from now until Roubaix are the most important two weeks of the season," sport director Maarten Wynants told Velo. "Flanders and Roubaix are above all the other classics," Wynants said this week. "Those two races will reflect if our whole season is good or not."

"Of course, we want to win many races like we did last year, and that includes Harelbeke and those afterward," said Wynants, who raced with the squad until 2021. "But for Wout and the team, it’s the monuments that matter most."

"Wout comes straight from the mountain Wednesday and wants to be winning straight away, starting at the E3," Wynants said. "There’s not too many opportunities for him and then his spring season is done."

"Wout says he’s good. He’s confident, motivated, and has trained well," Wynants said. "He’s perfectly in his bubble now. Wout has confidence in this approach, but we’re always fine-tuning and it’s hard to say if this is the right decision until you have the results. Only the monuments will decide if this was right."