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Teams & Riders Official Wout Van Aert thread

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Exactly. One has just to look at his 2021 season: his build-up to the Tour was far from ideal (surgery). Then he wins the double (!) Ventoux (!) stage with 4500 altitude meters in the summer heat, beats Cavendish on the Champs-Elysees. Then he finishes only six seconds (!) behind Ganna (!) on a WC ITT parcours that suits Ganna (best time trialist ever?) perfectly. Wout clearly seems to be the born bikeracer.

Now see Jumbo-Visma has this guy (Wout), and have another guy called Primoz who - within few years - becomes World Champion in ski jumping (!) and Olympic Champion in cycling/ITT (!).

To be honest, I don‘t know who of both to admire more…
Well what I wonder about Van Aert, honestly and without criticism, is that if he put all his eggs in one basket in any of the disciplines at which he so excels: would he win a mountain stage when GC contenders are all in? Would he beat Ganna or Kung in the most targeted TT? Would he beat Cavendish or Sagan all in for Green? To the last, likely. To the second to last, possibly. To the first, no.
 
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Well what I wonder about Van Aert, honestly and without criticism, is if he put all his eggs in one basket in any of the disciplines at which he so excels: would he win a mountain stage when GC contenders are all in? Would he beat Ganna or Kung in the most targeted TT? Would he beat Cavendish or Sagan all in for Green? To the last, likely. To the second to last, possibly. To the first no.

Agree.

I furthermore think he won‘t ever win a Grand Tour. He however manages to become Top20 in the TdF without going for GC.

If you see Alaphilippe got 5th in the Tour in 2019, I could imagine that Wout also could reach at least the Top5-Top10 in a GT…
 
Wouts biggest weakness is he doesn't attack or take risks. He just tries to hold things together.

I have to admit, he was also isolated by weak jumbo team in Flemish classics, chasing the moves of Quickstep and Vanderpoel all by himself. So that is an aspext

But if Wout could attack like the legendary Big Ballan here he would win Flanders and World championships. He did it in Strade 2020 and destroy everyone. But since then he is so defensive.

View: https://youtu.be/7LxJRG3jPCo



Nice video for the young WVA fans.
 
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Wouts biggest weakness is he doesn't attack or take risks. He just tries to hold things together.

I have to admit, he was also isolated by weak jumbo team in Flemish classics, chasing the moves of Quickstep and Vanderpoel all by himself. So that is an aspext

But if Wout could attack like the legendary Big Ballan here he would win Flanders and World championships. He did it in Strade 2020 and destroy everyone. But since then he is so defensive.

View: https://youtu.be/7LxJRG3jPCo



Nice video for the young WVA fans.
Not in a hundred years would he have won the race if Italy wasn't the best team that day. This isn't an amazing attack or effort, it's tactical ingenuity. You can't become world champion without a pair of strong legs, and having the presence of mind in the finale is also testimony, so I give him that, but it's weird to me that you would rate this as high a performance as for instance Wout at the Ventoux, or Strade, or Tokio, or lots of other races.
 
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Not in a hundred years would he have won the race if Italy wasn't the best team that day. This isn't an amazing attack or effort, it's tactical ingenuity. You can't become world champion without a pair of strong legs, and having the presence of mind in the finale is also testimony, so I give him that, but it's weird to me that you would rate this as high a performance as for instance Wout at the Ventoux, or Strade, or Tokio, or lots of other races.
Tokyo he didn't win.

Worlds is more important than strade or a tour stage.
 
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Not in a hundred years would he have won the race if Italy wasn't the best team that day. This isn't an amazing attack or effort, it's tactical ingenuity. You can't become world champion without a pair of strong legs, and having the presence of mind in the finale is also testimony, so I give him that, but it's weird to me that you would rate this as high a performance as for instance Wout at the Ventoux, or Strade, or Tokio, or lots of other races.
Tokyo he didn't win.

Worlds is more important than strade or a tour stage.
Per-for-mance.
There's no way discussing this with you, is there.
 
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Not in a hundred years would he have won the race if Italy wasn't the best team that day. This isn't an amazing attack or effort, it's tactical ingenuity. You can't become world champion without a pair of strong legs, and having the presence of mind in the finale is also testimony, so I give him that, but it's weird to me that you would rate this as high a performance as for instance Wout at the Ventoux, or Strade, or Tokio, or lots of other races.
There's one guy who's performance in Tokyo was more impressive. There's at least a couple of performances more impressive than Wout's Ventoux in last year's Tour. And there's certainly a couple of at least equal performances at Strade in recent years, so it's not that Van Aert rides are out of this world.
The guy is certainly more talented than Ballan, or Pozzato, but what I think Il Maestro is trying to say is that although Van Aert is hugely talented and strong, he didn't quite back that up with the biggest results, and he's maybe right when points to the fact that maybe it is due to his conservative style of racing.
He's still young though, and his best years probably are ahead of him, but I think it's a mistake to put him in the same "league" with Boonen or Cancellara, at least yet.
 
Lol, he was nearly beaten by some marathon runner for the Belgian Sportsman of the Year award.

For a country with football players such as Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, it seems a bit off to me that there are no footballers in the top 5, but maybe the people couldn't forgive them for not winning the Euros?

But congratulations with the award - for the second consecutive time.
 
Lol, he was nearly beaten by some marathon runner for the Belgian Sportsman of the Year award.

For a country with football players such as Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, it seems a bit off to me that there are no footballers in the top 5, but maybe the people couldn't forgive them for not winning the Euros?

But congratulations with the award - for the second consecutive time.
Such awards are generally very biased against team sports if you will. Also football players are harder to objectively rate
 
Lol, he was nearly beaten by some marathon runner for the Belgian Sportsman of the Year award.

For a country with football players such as Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, it seems a bit off to me that there are no footballers in the top 5, but maybe the people couldn't forgive them for not winning the Euros?

But congratulations with the award - for the second consecutive time.
That marathonrunner currently holds the european record at 2:03:36 with the 14th best time of all time, 2nd best time in 2021 and he won a bronze medal in Tokyo.
While Van Aert had a good season but nothing exceptional imo.
 
That marathonrunner currently holds the european record at 2:03:36 with the 14th best time of all time, 2nd best time in 2021 and he won a bronze medal in Tokyo.
While Van Aert had a good season but nothing exceptional imo.

Great for him.

Nothing exceptional, lol. People really underestimate that ridiculous stage win hattrick in the World's biggest bike race. I honestly think that's worth more than a monument (and I'm not saying that's true for any stage-win hattrick, but a Ventoux-ITT-Champs Élysées combo is just pure insanity and will get its place in cycling history).
 
Great for him.

Nothing exceptional, lol. People really underestimate that ridiculous stage win hattrick in the World's biggest bike race. I honestly think that's worth more than a monument (and I'm not saying that's true for any stage-win hattrick, but a Ventoux-ITT-Champs Élysées combo is just pure insanity and will get its place in cycling history).
I don't think it will be remembered more than Armstrong's three stage wins in three days in 2004.
 
I don't think it will be remembered more than Armstrong's three stage wins in three days in 2004.
It's really down to fans propping it up, cause they love van Aert and it's the best argument he has for a lack of monument or GT wins. Armstrong won the Tour 7 times, so him winning 20+ stages which wasn't the record went easily forgotten.

Roglic won a flat stage, a TT and 2 MTFs in the 2020 Vuelta and nobody gave a crap about that one cause it all paled to winning Liege, the Vuelta and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at the Tour.
 
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It's really down to fans propping it up, cause they love van Aert and it's the best argument he has for a lack of monument or GT wins. Armstrong won the Tour 7 times, so him winning 20+ stages which wasn't the record went easily forgotten.

Roglic won a flat stage, a TT and 2 MTFs in the 2020 Vuelta and nobody gave a crap about that one cause it all paled to winning Liege, the Vuelta and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at the Tour.

Sorry to burst your theory but I'm not a Van Aert fan. Not even close.
 
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Sorry to burst your theory but I'm not a Van Aert fan. Not even close.
Well you don't speak for every person propping it up? Also you're comparing an event that happened 17 years ago to one that happened this year as if recency bias doesn't exist.

My general point is still that a lot of people rate van Aert as a top 2/top3 cyclist in the world and then go seek for accomplishments to prove that. For me it's a cool trivia factoid, not some legendary accomplishment. I also don't like rating certain achievements way more on weird intangibles than actual results. Van Aert won 3 stages. So did Pogacar. Cavendish won 4 stages and in my opinion had the better Tour than Van Aert.
 
Okaaay...

So results is the ONLY thing that counts, ever? Then it's no wonder we disagree that often.

Then I just don't understand that if it's completely irrelevant how a rider wins a race, then why on Earth do you care so much about parcours?
When talking about victories? Yes, results matter. When talking performance? I stand by my list of 53 climbers better than Van Aert. If winning these 3 specific stages is so great why couldn't he win any monument this year?

Why I care about parcourses? That's a completely unrelated matter.
 
Yeah, what a weak-ass rider. Couldn't even help Vingegaard to the yellow jersey or get Olympic gold a week later.
Which is absolutely not what I am saying, definitely one of the top 5 riders in the world.
I am merely trying to explain why I think Van Aert's season wasn't exceptional by giving some context to his three stage wins.

Theres no need to pretend I said Van Aert was a weak-ass rider. He simply did not have an exceptional season, unlike Bashir Abdi.
 
Which is absolutely not what I am saying, definitely one of the top 5 riders in the world.
I am merely trying to explain why I think Van Aert's season wasn't exceptional by giving some context to his three stage wins.

Theres no need to pretend I said Van Aert was a weak-ass rider.
Using the weak field argument about the Tour is ridiculous anyway. It's by far the biggest race of the year and nobody forbid the other riders you name to be there. You can only beat the competition present, and in the Tour the competition is as good as it gets and at the peak of their condition.
 
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