Wout van Aert finally breaks the curse of this spring: "When Wout got on the bus, he was happy about winning the sprint for 4th"

Mattias Skjelmose stole the show at Amstel Gold Race, but perhaps the happiest was a rider who didn't even reach the podium. In Wout van Aert's palmares, the fourth place is "just another" decent result, but the way he achieved it matters the most. Finally, the 30-year-old Belgian was able to win a sprint.

As is often the case for Tadej Pogacar, the Slovenian never uphill slowly, thus reacting to his attack was always out of question for any human being. However the story was different for Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel took off from an already reduced group with 25 kilometers to go. "Remco shouldn't be allowed to ride away alone there," says Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Arthur van Dongen at HLN.

Van Aert afterwards admitted this to be a tactical misjudgement on his part, something his sports director only echoes. "If you can't keep up uphill, you shouldn't blame yourself, but on such a flat stretch Wout or Tiesj could and should have responded to the attack."

But there was at least partially optimistic conclusion to Amstel Gold Race for the Belgian. While podium was no longer part of the equation, he was able to outsprint everyone else for the fourth place. "When Wout got on the bus, he said he was happy with the fact that he had beaten Matthews in the sprint. That is also a positive ending to his campaign."

More than his sprint, Van Dongen was especially pleased with Van Aert's climbing: "Wout can be proud of the race he has completed. At Amstel he was also the heaviest rider of the top twenty in the results and yet that was not visible on the climbs."

Some forums witnessed discussions about Wout van Aert potentially aiming to compete for GC at the Giro d'Italia. Van Dongen puts a quick end to such conspiracies. "If Wout had aimed for a classification in the Giro, he would not have raced in the Brabantse Pijl or the Amstel, but would have sat at altitude."

In any case, he should arrive to Grande Partenza in Tirana in top shape. Winning some stages and maybe points classification doesn't seem like a too ambitious goal then?