{"id":197945,"date":"2025-02-18T10:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T10:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=197945"},"modified":"2025-02-18T10:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T10:33:11","slug":"visma-and-van-aert-return-as-ineos-wins-a-race-and-loses-a-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/02\/18\/visma-and-van-aert-return-as-ineos-wins-a-race-and-loses-a-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Visma and van Aert Return as INEOS Wins a Race and Loses a Star (Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wout van Aert and his Visma\u2013Lease a Bike team made its 2025 road race debut in Monday\u2019s gravelly one-day Cl\u00e1sica Ja\u00e9n, which was won by the INEOS Grenadiers veteran Michal Kwiatkowski. But as welcome as its first pro win in 226 days was to the troubled British squad, it could not celebrate very long because its last Tour de France winner, Egan Bernal, crashed late in the race and fractured his collarbone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The 28-year-old Bernal had begun his year by winning both the road race and time trial Colombian national championships and appeared to be finally approaching the form that had taken him to the 2019 Tour title and the 2021 Giro d\u2019Italia GC victory. He suffered life-threatening injuries in a training crash in 2022 and has been far from his best form since returning to the sport.<\/p>\n

In a press statement on his team\u2019s website<\/a>, Bernal was quoted as saying, “I was really happy to start racing again in Europe, especially with my new Colombian [championship] jersey\u2026 The way we raced was great and it was really nice to be part of a strong team. I was feeling really strong and, obviously, I\u2019m sad to have crashed, but at the same time, the way I felt during the race gave me a lot of confidence and motivation to keep working hard, the season (ahead) is very long.”<\/p>\n

No information was provided about when he would return to training. The crash was not picked up by live TV cameras, but a video<\/a> released after the race showed him going down on one of the many gravel sections that marked the race. (In the video, he is the middle rider who vanishes as he rides past a tree.)<\/p>\n

Kwiatkowski began his winning move with about 64 km left to ride in the 169.2 km race through the olive-tree landscape of Andalusia. He was accompanied by Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG) as the two riders joined the three remaining from the day\u2019s early breakaway. That group was eventually whittled down to three, with the surprising Spaniard Ibon Ruiz (Kern Pharma) staying with Kwiatkowski and McNulty as they maintained a lead of about 50 seconds over a chasing group of some 15 riders, which contained van Aert and another Visma rider, 23-year-old Ben Tulett.<\/p>\n

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Zobrazit p\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek na Instagramu<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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P\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek sd\u00edlen\u00fd Cl\u00e1sica Ja\u00e9n Para\u00edso Interior (@clasicajaen)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n