After a year that was disrupted by two serious crashes, it’s only natural that van Aert will want to find a sort of redemption to prove that he can still be a major force in the sport and to pursue goals that were sabotaged by last season’s misfortunes. For example, the Giro had been on his program last year, but was dropped following his crash in the Dwars door Vlaanderen.
Incredibly, van Aert still feels the consequences of that crash nearly a year later. “In the second half of the Dendermonde race I had some trouble with my right leg, but not to the extent that I had to slow down,” he said. “I can still feel my knee every day, and even my back and ribs from that fall in March. Those parts of my body still require attention every day, so I am very happy that my body can already handle such a muddy race, because clambering through mud up to the ankles is really an assault on the body.”
Of course, the manner in which he dominated that race also gave him confidence for the upcoming season. As he put it, “I also learned this weekend that the situation is certainly not bad in terms of condition.”
He is currently at a winter training session with his team in La Nucia, Spain. His final two cyclocross races will be in the World Cup races in Benidorm on January 19 and in Maasmechelen on the 25th. Three weeks later, on February 17, he will ride in his first road race of the year in the Clásica Jaén. That will be followed, only two days later, with the first stage of the five-stage Volta ao Algarve. In that race, he will be riding against the likes of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Primož Roglič (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) and Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) and hoping to at least win a stage, as he did last year.
March begins with two races in two days, starting with the Omloop Nieuwsblad on the 1st, followed by the Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne the following day. That will be followed by an altitude camp in Tenerife to prepare for the big spring Classics, starting with the E3 Saxo Classic on March 28. Then, in quick succession, come the Gent-Wevelgem on March 30 and a reunion with the Dwars door Vlaanderen on April 2. Those races could be regarded as preparation for his two big goals of the spring, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, neither of which he has won yet. Van Aert’s Classics season ends with the Amstel Gold Race on April 20.
That makes for eight tough one-day races in 51 days, quite an exhausting program – and the Giro d’Italia begins less than three weeks after the Amstel. That’s asking a lot, even of a superstar. In the Giro, he will be hunting stage wins and providing leadout support for Visma’s excellent young sprinter Olav Kooij. Then, assuming everything has gone as planned, van Aert will be supporting two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard in his quest to wrest the yellow jersey from the shoulders of Tadej Pogačar, who won both the Giro and the Tour last year. And he may also be looking to take another Škoda Green Jersey.
“I was pleasantly surprised that there are so many transition stages and stages for puncheurs in the Tour,” he told Sporza. “And I saw [that there are] a lot of small hills, even in the first week. It reminds me a lot of the first week of the Tour of 2022.” In that Tour, van Aert finished on the podium in eight stages, winning three of them and the Škoda Green Jersey.
Van Aert has also been thinking about increasing safety in the sport, which was rocked by a number of high-profile crashes last year, including his own. He has especially been thinking about his crash in the Vuelta, which occurred on a wet descent. In that interview with Sporza, he called for limiting the number of gears on a bike to reduce top speeds.
“Limiting the number of gears would make the sport a lot safer, in my opinion,” he said. “Other riders don’t think so. But I’m convinced: if you are on a descent with a gear limit, no one can move up. Now the gears are so big that you still think about overtaking.”
Nevertheless, four months after the Vuelta crash, van Aert has returned to form and has set the bar very high for himself this year. “I dream of being able to look back on a victory in the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix in a year’s time. That’s definitely at the top of my list. And I also learned from last year that I can be successful if I can ride a Grand Tour in a free way.”
