{"id":187911,"date":"2021-12-13T09:19:09","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T09:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=187911"},"modified":"2021-12-13T09:22:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T09:22:30","slug":"can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Wout van Aert Win the \u0160koda Green Jersey in Next Year&#8217;s Tour?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>How good a cyclist is Wout van Aert? Ask one of his rivals. &#8220;We have to be honest,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/news\/cyclo-cross-stars-stunned-and-pessimistic-after-wout-van-aerts-storming-return\/\">said<\/a> cyclocross rider Toon Aerts, after van Aert won the first cyclo-cross competition he raced in nearly a year by nearly 2 minutes. \u201cIf you see how van Aert rode away, it could be a Christmas period without victories [for us].&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>That ride-away victory came on December 4 in the Superprestige Boom, after a two-month break from competitive cycling and after the 27-year-old Belgian had crashed in the mud on the penultimate lap. &#8220;It is unbelievable what Wout van Aert has done here,&#8221; added Aerts who finished second, 1:42 behind. The three-time cyclo-cross world champion is better known to the world as the best domestique in the world, having ridden in support of Jumbo-Visma teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/06\/29\/ride2unite-podcast-with-primoz-roglic-i-had-to-learn-how-to-suffer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a>\u00a0in the past three Tours while showing strength in every aspect of the race, from sprint to climbing, and winning six stages along the way.<\/p>\n<p>So, when van Aert said he is aiming to win the Green Jersey in next year\u2019s Tour, everybody in the cycling community paid attention. &#8220;Next year, I really want to go for the Green Jersey,&#8221; Van Aert <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hln.be\/wielrennen\/ik-ga-vol-voor-de-groene-trui-wout-van-aert-heeft-zijn-plan-voor-de-tour-van-2022-klaar~a8e8e66a\/\">told<\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hln.be\/wielrennen\/ik-ga-vol-voor-de-groene-trui-wout-van-aert-heeft-zijn-plan-voor-de-tour-van-2022-klaar~a8e8e66a\/\"><em>Het Laatste Nieuws<\/em><\/a>. &#8220;And we will make a plan that fits in the general team tactics.\u201d He insisted that he would be able to concentrate on his green dream and also continue to ride in support of Rogli\u010d\u2019s GC ambitions. &#8220;My point is that if I go for the green, I expect the team to support me in that,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it would be a bit strange [for me] to say, &#8216;Primo\u017e, I won&#8217;t help you&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-controller-wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Today was a good day \ud83d\ude0e <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yEHd556KJg\">https:\/\/t.co\/yEHd556KJg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Wout van Aert (@WoutvanAert) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WoutvanAert\/status\/1470111398587994115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 12, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async data-src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>If there are any sceptics around who doubt that the Belgian has the chops to beat the likes of seven-time \u0160koda Green Jersey winner Peter Sagan; last year\u2019s Green Jersey winner Mark Cavendish whom Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2021\/jul\/18\/comeback-kid-mark-cavendish-poised-to-join-tour-de-france-immortals\">called<\/a> &#8220;the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling&#8221;; 2020 Green Jersey winner Sam Bennett; and the very fast but hard-luck Australian Caleb Ewan, all they need to do is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qYGyWGLzPeg\">look<\/a> at the finish of this year\u2019s final stage of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n<p>In what may be the most prestigious mass sprint in the world, on the famed Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in Paris, van Aert blew away the competition, which included Cavendish who was attempting to break the Tour de France stage win record of van Aert\u2019s legendary countryman Eddy Merckx and had already secured the Green Jersey win.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/news\/van-der-poel-set-to-rival-van-aert-for-green-jersey-at-tour-de-france\/\">possibility<\/a> that van Aert\u2019s great rival in all competitions, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, could try to expand their rivalry to include the Tour Green Jersey. Unfortunately, the Dutch rider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.velonews.com\/news\/cyclocross\/report-mathieu-van-der-poel-picks-up-knee-injury-in-training-crash\/\">crashed<\/a> in training and injured a knee. His status at the time of writing was unknown.<\/p>\n<p>But if van der Poel recovers and if all the other noted sprinters show up healthy and in form in Denmark for the Grand D\u00e9part next July, that would turn the points classification race into a competition to rival that for the Yellow Jersey.<\/p>\n<p>Who is the favourite? The fastest rider with the best team and the most luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How good a cyclist is Wout van Aert? Ask one of his rivals. &#8220;We have to be honest,\u201d said cyclocross [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":187912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[4619,461,2933,3453,433,831],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-187911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-cycling-news","tag-mark-cavendish","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-skoda-green-jersey","tag-tour-de-france","tag-wout-van-aert","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can Wout van Aert Win the \u0160koda Green Jersey in Next Year&#039;s Tour? - We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How good a cyclist is Wout van Aert? Ask one of his rivals. &quot;We have to be honest,\u201d said cyclocross rider Toon Aerts, after van Aert won the first\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Wout van Aert Win the \u0160koda Green Jersey in Next Year&#039;s Tour?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How good a cyclist is Wout van Aert? Ask one of his rivals. &quot;We have to be honest,\u201d said cyclocross rider Toon Aerts, after van Aert won the first\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-13T09:19:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-13T09:22:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2021\/12\/Wout-van-Aert-profimedia-profimedia-0639980634-CVR.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tereza\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Siegfried Mortkowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/\",\"name\":\"Can Wout van Aert Win the \u0160koda Green Jersey in Next Year's Tour? - We Love Cycling\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/12\/13\/can-wout-van-aert-win-the-skoda-green-jersey\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2021\/12\/Wout-van-Aert-profimedia-profimedia-0639980634-CVR.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-13T09:19:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-13T09:22:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/50f01ecd18718d2333cf72e823c4f926\"},\"description\":\"How good a cyclist is Wout van Aert? 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