Wither Wout?

Updated in the light of Dwars door Vlaanderen

It’s about Wout.

I’ve just seen him beaten in a two up sprint by Nielsen Powless, having co-created and then curated a 4 rider move at Dwars door Vlaanderen. 3 of the 4 were wearing Visma Lease-a-Bike’s yellow jerseys. One rider had a distinctive helmet. One rider in the quartet was such a strong favourite that the team simply rode to the line to deliver him to what they all assumed would be a routine, important win. But that’s not what happened. Nielsen Powless was quite brilliant. But this is a result that raises still more questions about the form of one of the greatest riders I have ever seen.

So, as I say: It’s about Wout.

For half a decade this rider has been my north star, my favourite, the Harry Styles in my boyband of Gen Z riders, and he still is.

My voice even features in a glorious Belgian pop song about him. Nothing would be greater, in my humble estimation than to see the dimpled, vertically haired Belgian storm to victory in 9 days time at the all important Ronde van Vlaanderen. To see the yellow Visma jersey wrapping his characteristically rounded back and slender form ride away from the monstrous MVDP and the cobra-like Pogačar would be a beautiful return on the emotional investment I have spent on Wout down the years. I wish it for him, but I doubt it.

My bank account of Wout memories has statements going back for years. His victory in the 2019 Tour de France, just a month or two after MVDP had stolen the show by rampaging to victory in Amstel Gold, was a moment of purest gold. It was in Albi, of all heavenly places, on a searingly hot day, on the eve of a second rest day. Later on that evening, Pete, David and I would dine in the relative cool of a restaurant near the mighty red-brick Cathedral, built as a fortress to vanquish and tame the Cathars.

I love the fact that this was where Wout took his first stage at the Tour. Albi’s great edifice is a mixture of brutality and great beauty. That’ll do for me as a metaphor for Wout Van Aert and the things he has done. It is easy to forget his wildly violent crash in the individual time trial in Pau a few short days later. Most careers would have ended there and then, so appalling were the wounds. It is a wonder he is racing at all.

None of us knew back then that the we wouldn’t be back to the Tour for another 15 months, and that Covid would delay Strade Bianche and Milan Sanremo in 2020 until a searingly hot August. I was lucky enough to attend both races in person. Wearing either home-made or otherwise substandard face masks and on both occasions, I witnessed Van Aert in triumph.

In 2020’s delayed Tour, he continued to progress beyond expectations for a cyclo cross star. Riding in support of Primož Roglič’s ultimately doomed attempt to win the race (because Pog), he nonetheless picked up two more stage wins, a couple of podiums and generally speaking marauded all over the place.

He lost out to MVDP at the weirdly late Flanders, and to Alaphilippe at the all-round weird worlds. But he was rapidly becoming an unstoppable force.

In 2021, he won Gent Wevelgem and the Amstel Gold Race, before setting the crazy template of winning a mountain stage (Ventoux!), a TT and a sprint (Paris!) at the Tour. Then he went to the Tour of Britain, ostensibly to prepare for the worlds, and got sucked into a punch up with Begbie Alaphilippe every single day; a bare knuckle scrap that left them both bruised, but fighting fit. That autumn they finished 1st ad 2nd at the worlds.

That victory on British soil sealed the deal for me. The sight of the Frenchman and WVA collapsed over the finish line of the Great Orme in Llandudno was just marvellous.

Which leaves us with 2022, and the Greatest Ride In The History Of The Tour. What Van Aert did that July, in winning three stages (much like in 2021, they were the complete set), the green jersey (with total ease) and very nearly the polka dot jersey (by accident) would have been in the top 40 of all time Tour contributions. But when you factor in the clear anomaly that he was riding in support of Jonas Vingegaard’s first victory and was instrumental in that win, then I contend that this was perhaps the greatest individual ride of all time at the Tour. The reason that you can’t compare it with any other, is that there has never been another like it.

So: since then.

2023 Wout was great by any measure, and on occasion, miraculous. But 2024 was a horror show of double injury. The agony of his broken bones as Dwars Door Vlaanderen, and then the cruelty of that Vuelta crash were horrible events to behold.

And here we are in 2025, where he has dodged Milan Sanremo and recently failed (with his team) at E3.

For a while (it started during his winless Tour de France of 2024) I have been reluctantly suggesting that Wout’s flame was starting to gutter. I made a prediction during last July on Never Strays Far, that he would never be world champion, and perhaps never win another stage at the Tour. Of course, I am almost certainly wrong. But I may also be right.

I said something similar about Peter Sagan a long time ago, and I was very nearly proved right, despite the consistent poo-pooing of my colleagues Pete and David, who I maintain are sometimes blinded by a rightful deference to talent. Sagan moved to Total Energies and went from winning 15 races a year to less than 2. When great champions like that, of such extreme versatility, lose their 5% edge, their winning margin evaporates. Sagan is the mold into which Wout’s amazing talent was poured.

I do not see WVA winning another Tour de France time trial, nor bunch sprint. If he wins again, it will have to be a more expansive race, and there are a host of young riders wrestling for the exact same outcome now, on his very turf.

Did his self-belief take a huge knock today, when all his confidence proved to be based on the fumes of success, the remembrance of domination? I do not think that riders of his quality suffer too badly from a lack of confidence. I hope that this is the case. I hope that his defeat at Dwars door Vlaanderen was not as damaging as it looked.

I am heading to Belgium next weekend to stand by the side of the road at the Ronde. I have booked into the only hotel in Ninove, the home town of Théo Beeckman, and I intend to rent a bike and ride out to the race and holler at Wout to prove me wrong.

This shouldn’t be difficult. But it might be.