People are obsessed with this food app, as if it limits riders in how much they eat, but actually for a lot of them it results in eating more than they did before. I reckon for someone like Uijtdebroeks, who did this all on his own on his previous team, this will have been no different.Altough more than average talented, he has not the qualities of a future GT-winner. Probably not even a potential podium-rider. Not explosive, and mediocre in TT. Bad for stagewins and bad for GT-ambitions. But he does have talent.
But what happened this season, and probably also during the winter ? It's clear he's having trouble digesting the food-app. After that, both Uijtdebroeks and the team made serious mistakes. The rider by concealing the fact that he already suffered from numb legs at the beginning of the season. The team by allowing him to stay in the Vuelta for two weeks despite his poor health condition. I suspect that, after the heavy criticism, the team is now using a Covid excuse to withdraw him from the Vuelta. But much too late. Hopefully his season ends now, and the necessary medical examinations are now finally being carried out. Then everything can still work out before the start of the next season. It is important that they do not put the rider in a straightjacket, but take his qualities, weaknesses and physical limitations into account. Otherwise he will be destroyed next season and it will be the end of his career.
The idea of a straitjacket is very prevalent in your Belgian media, mostly because they feel Van Aert is being held back by his team and doesn't get to be the leader in every single race he starts, but actually they're probably quite advanced in an individual approach for every rider. That doesn't mean they get the best out of every one of them though... clearly in the case of Uijtdebroeks they didn't.