Wout van Aert on upcoming brutal days at Vuelta a Espana: "There aren't many opportunities for me this week, although I will try to attack a few more times"

Wout van Aert is often a rider who is very consistent but somehow lacks the big wins, but that can't be said of his debut at the Vuelta a España. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider has indeed finished second and third on three occasions; but he also took two wins in the first week of the race and now looks ahead to more difficult days.

"That's all it needs to be. I'm very happy with how this week went. This was also the week with the most opportunities for me," van Aert said in words to Het Laatste Nieuws. "I was hoping to be able to stand here before the rest day with a win and firmly in the green. When I look back on this week, I was also close in Sevilla, but in sprints it always comes down to details."

Van Aert won the uphill sprint into Castelo Branco on stage 3 and the reduced group sprint on stage 7 after Sepp Kuss' brilliant work to bring back the late attacks of UAE Team Emirates. The Belgian has also aimed for the points classification and has sprinted in several intermediate sprints, building a gap of 41 points over Kaden Groves and a gap that is pretty much impossible to close for the rest of the peloton. Whilst the team's GC ambitions are thus far not coming together as wished, the team can't complain about their lack of success.

But into the second week the race does change, and becomes even more difficult than what it has so far, without a single flat stage for the sprinters to contest. Through breakaways, one or two days become a possibility for van Aert. "There aren't many opportunities for me this week, although I will try to attack a few more times. There are definitely still some opportunities to be seized in the final week," he concludes.