🇪🇸 #LaVuelta24 A few words that describe the first week of Team Visma | Lease a Bike: red, green, winning, and scorching heat. ❤️💚🥇🥵 Join us in enjoying the most beautiful photos from the first nine stages! 📸⤵️
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"
CyclingTuesday, 27 August 2024 at 12:03
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."
Read also
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.
Read also
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Plus MVDP now having basically done 4 seasons in 2 years might warrant a slightly longer rest than usual, although even then his will STILL be shorter than 98% of all other pro cyclists in any field.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- Yes, I’d say they’ve done their job in CX.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- C’mon, they need this kind of gooey content in winter to stop readers switching off. Medias sowing seeds to provoke discussion and rumours that lead to a self-defined legitimacy to introduce undesired questions during rider interviews in order to boast delivery of “original” contentMistermaumau15-11-2024
- By definition an analogy is always GERMANE, tganjs for pointing out the obvious and revealing you don’t understand its purpose.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- The reason you don’t see these type of websites often and certainly not in cycling might be that they die before you find them. But tell us about it when you’re done I’ll visit to check it out.Mistermaumau15-11-2024
- Someone should do this: create a cycling news site that is free with no ads. Watch the subscriptions like up. Then carefully and slowly introduce ads. I might do it myself. Sites like CUTD are poorly conceived and consequently a mess. Readers will leave as soon as there is a better alternative.Renz15-11-2024
- Wout still recovering from injuries? Might be more of a factor than any attempted middle finger to the UCI?mobk15-11-2024
- We ll talk about all of this in 10 years - but for now lets stop the bullshitChrisBe14-11-2024
- This may very well be is the least germaine comment I've ever read online.verve82514-11-2024
- Yes! Clear up these gray areas before lives are lost or damaged!velodan14-11-2024