Wout Van Aert's former teammate Nathan Van Hooydonck suggests "he should now mainly focus on next year" after 2024 marred by crashes

Wout Van Aert has, unwillingly, become the sad hero of this Vuelta a Espana. Leading both the points and mountain classifications, he crashed twice during the Tuesday's stage 16 of Vuelta a Espana and, despite not suffering any major injuries, he subsequently abandoned the race with a self-explaining expression.

His former teammate-turned-commentator Nathan Van Hooydonck would like to console his friend, but is aware that right now, he needs some time to organize his thoughts. The Belgian believes that it'd be better to just leave 2024 behind and move on to the next season. Hopefully, the bad luck has to let go of Visma | Lease a Bike at some point, right?

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"It can't get any more sour," Van Hooydonck judges at Sporza. "Wout was making a great comeback. He fought back fantastically after a serious injury. This comes at a very bad time. For me it's easy to say that he'll get over this too, but this is yet another setback for him," according to the former Jumbo-Visma rider.

Van Hooydonck believes that a good recovery is especially important. "Now the question is how he will recover from this, of course. And whether he can still make something of his season and his autumn, or whether he even wants to, because I can also imagine that he is now throwing in the towel for this season. He should now mainly focus on next year. If you try to speed up your recovery, that can be disastrous for the future."

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Update on Wout van Aert's injuries - No fractures after La Vuelta but 'intensive care' required