{"id":196726,"date":"2024-09-09T16:18:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T16:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=196726"},"modified":"2024-09-09T16:20:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T16:20:33","slug":"van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/09\/09\/van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Aert Crash Deprived the Vuelta of a Legendary Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crashes are part of cycling, and have always been, but especially in the past few years, as the racing got much faster and much more competitive, with riders often going at full speed right from the start of a race or stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This year, one team has been especially affected by riders falling off their bikes. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Visma\u2013Lease a Bike, who lost their two superstars, Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert, for much of the season because of spring crashes.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard\u2019s last outing, and his final appearance of the year, resulted in a victory in the Tour of Poland. He will be back at full strength next year. Van Aert\u2019s last outing, and his final appearance of the year, was a crash on stage 16 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a,<\/a> a crash that ended what would have been a remarkable comeback and a performance that would have been one of the highlights of the race and a part of cycling legend.<\/p>\n

At the time of the crash, van Aert had won three stages and had an insurmountable lead, 291 points to 182, over his only real rival in the race for the green jersey, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck). With only one real sprint stage left, that jersey was as good as his. He had also taken over the virtual lead in the King of the Mountains (KOM) competition from Jay Vine of UAE Team Emirates. He was back in top form and set to make his mark on another Grand Tour.<\/p>\n

But all that vanished in a split second, with about 50km left to ride in the 185.1km stage. As he was descending from the second of three categorized climbs in the stage, the Collada Llomena, on a rain-slick surface, he lost control of his bike in a sharp curve and crashed for the second time that day. Felix Engelhardt (Jayco-AlUla) had just crashed in front of him and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) fell behind him, but those two\u00a0 riders continued riding on.<\/p>\n

\"Kaden<\/a>
Kaden Groves became the \u0160koda Greeen Jersey winner. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Aert fell on some rocks at the side of the road and badly injured his left knee. He got back on his bike and tried to race on, but the injury proved too serious, and he quickly dismounted. He was treated by a staff member at the scene, but it was in vain. The accident not only put an end to his quest for the green jersey, but also to his year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWout van Aert will not race any more this season,\u201d the team announced<\/a> on its website the next day. \u201c[He] needs time to recover from his crash in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. He suffered a serious knee injury that will require intensive care.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had also been looking forward to riding in the UCI Road Race World Championships in Zurich at the end of September and would have come into that competition not only in great form, but also more rested than most of his competition because of the time he had lost due to his crash in the Dwars door Vlaanderen in late March.<\/p>\n

He will be missed at the Worlds by his Belgian teammate Remco Evenepoel. Van Aert was invaluable in helping him win the Olympics road race. One wonders how, and if, this bad-luck season will affect van Aert\u2019s riding in the future.<\/p>\n

More than that, however, the Vuelta and the race for the green jersey were much poorer because of his absence. Groves went on to win the green jersey, by 226 points to 140 over red jersey winner Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013Hansgrohe), with another non-sprinter, Max Poole (dsm-firmenich PostNL), in third, at 118 points.<\/p>\n

The presence of two non-sprinters on the \u0160koda Green Jersey podium illustrates the weakness of the sprinting competition in this Vuelta, which had some 65,000m of altitude gain throughout the three weeks. The only other sprinter to win a bunch sprint in the race was the 21-year-old Czech rider Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL), who finished sixth in the points classification, with 106 points.<\/p>\n

This shouldn\u2019t take the gloss off of Groves\u2019 victory. He also won three stages and proved faster than van Aert, twice edging him out in a bunch sprint. But the up-and-down nature of the race had been to the advantage of van Aert, who is the better climber.<\/p>\n

Asked after that fateful stage 16 if he had expected to win the \u0160koda Green Jersey, Groves said, \u201cNot at all. Wout had such a convincing lead in the points classification. Not to mention that he\u2019s also leading in the polka-dot [KOM jersey]. I know that he abandoned, and it\u2019s a pretty terrible way to wear the green [jersey].\u201d<\/p>\n

It is also a terrible way to lose the \u0160koda Green Jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crashes are part of cycling, and have always been, but especially in the past few years, as the racing got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":196732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[7534,8002,7350,479,8003,3453,831],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-196726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-2024-la-vuelta","tag-felix-engelhardt","tag-kaden-groves","tag-la-vuelta","tag-pavel-bittner","tag-skoda-green-jersey","tag-wout-van-aert","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\nVan Aert Crash Deprived the Vuelta of a Legendary Performance - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Crashes are part of cycling, and have always been, but especially in the past few years, as the racing got much faster and much more competitive, with\" \/>\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\/2024\/09\/09\/van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Van Aert Crash Deprived the Vuelta of a Legendary Performance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Crashes are part of cycling, and have always been, but especially in the past few years, as the racing got much faster and much more competitive, with\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/09\/09\/van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-09-09T16:18:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-09T16:20:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/09\/Wout-van-Aert-2024-profimedia-0903261605-CVR.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"660\" \/>\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=\"4\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/09\/09\/van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/09\/09\/van-aert-crash-deprived-the-vuelta-of-a-legendary-performance\/\",\"name\":\"Van Aert Crash Deprived the Vuelta of a Legendary Performance - 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