Wout van Aert: "I think my biggest chance of winning stages is in the sprints"

As the 2023 Tour de France nears, the role of Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma is still something of an unknown. After he superhuman performance in helping Jonas Vingegaard take yellow 12 months ago what van Aert will we see this time around?

"At training camp I combined sprint and mountain work. In addition, I also tried to spend time on the time trial bike," van Aert tells L'Équipe. "But I think my biggest chance of winning stages is in the sprints. Just like last year, however, there are also many opportunities in the first week. The first stages promise to be crazy."

With rumours doing the rounds that van Aert won't make it to Paris and is set to abandon the race as soon as his expectant wife goes into labour, the key nature of that first week becomes even clearer for the Belgian. Last year though, it was in the third week that van Aert really came into his element.

“The most important thing is to recover and be at your best every day. It is much more difficult than in any competition. I understood during my first Tour that sometimes you have to have a quieter day or accept that you miss a breakaway, for example, and then recover as best as possible in view of another attempt the next day," he explains. "I also noticed that I could adapt to enormous efforts. And that I am less tired than others in the final week. It is in the last stages that I put in my best performances, for example on the climbs."