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Teams & Riders Official Wout Van Aert thread

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He's racing Algarve again first.

He was pretty bad in Algarve last year.
Didn't he win a stage in Algarve last year?

Suposedly he was in 'his best form of his life' when he fell in Dwars door Vlaanderen LY. That's why he's copying that approach. I can only imagine there's some truth to it, why on earth would he do the exact same thing as last year if it wasn't so.

I think he's aiming for Roubaix to be his best self as that's the race where he should be able to follow MVP. That's in 60-ish days. Hell, Vingegaard just left ICU 60 days before the start of last years TDF. Still all to play and train for.
 
Don't worry, according to Sporza he was just training and let himself get dropped from the peloton :)

That's why Tulett did all that work for him initially.
An in form Wout would have closed the gap when he hit the front. Mathieu would have attacked from 50K out and held off everyone else by 5 minutes. Pog would have attacked from 120K out and won by 35 minutes.

Normal stuff.
 
An in form Wout would have closed the gap when he hit the front. Mathieu would have attacked from 50K out and held off everyone else by 5 minutes. Pog would have attacked from 120K out and won by 35 minutes.

Normal stuff.
Agreed.. But Wout rode excellent, he was solo yellow on the front pulling everyone for miles, yes he blew up but he also rode some intense quality kilometers,
I saw his efforts as encouraging The Pog God was beat by 2 riders at UAE, Jonas not to be seen, Roglic getting coffee, Remco mendind eating pizza..MVdP transitions from cyclocross.. February..
 
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Agreed.. But Wout rode excellent, he was solo yellow on the front pulling everyone for miles, yes he blew up but he also rode some intense quality kilometers,
I saw his efforts as encouraging The Pog God was beat by 2 riders at UAE, Jonas not to be seen, Roglic getting coffee, Remco mendind eating pizza..MVdP transitions from cyclocross.. February..
It's not a disaster, but to call this encouraging is a bit of a stretch.

Pogacar was beaten by two pure powerhouses on a flat course, and of course he'll win with at least a minute advantage on the climb tomorrow. That's different from Van Aert struggling to follow riders who will be nowhere in contention for the races he's trying to win.
 
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WVA can win PR but RVV is out of reach IMHO. Dude is a shadow of his former self.

Agreed. Top par WVA 2020-2022 could have also won RVV if he sprinted earlier, didn't get sick, didn't fall, ect.
For WVA to win RVV he'd have to do it Gilbert style or both Poggy and MVP would have to miss RVV.

PR is another thing, suits him well and if no bad luck he will always contend for the win.