Poor Wout. Blame the way Roglič rides and Jumbo plan the race out. I mean, he's got a thread already, when Peter Sagan didn't have a Clinic thread until 2016. Remember Sagan Mk I won this stage:
If Nibali had stuck around at Liquigas and been the kind of rider that thrived on a race-strangling train, I bet you Sagan would have been the exact same rider Wout van Aert is today. If Rogla had crashed out early or he and Dumoulin withdrew and van Aert started trying to win the maillot vert in the intermediate stages and sprints, people are probably going nuts about what a breath of fresh air van Aert is (unless he then decided to go for his own GC, which would probably have been disastrous). By Jumbo riding a defensive, controlling rade and reducing everything to pure power, van Aert doesn't get to build up that sympathetic goodwill that insulated Sagan from the Clinic for half a decade...
If Nibali had stuck around at Liquigas and been the kind of rider that thrived on a race-strangling train, I bet you Sagan would have been the exact same rider Wout van Aert is today. If Rogla had crashed out early or he and Dumoulin withdrew and van Aert started trying to win the maillot vert in the intermediate stages and sprints, people are probably going nuts about what a breath of fresh air van Aert is (unless he then decided to go for his own GC, which would probably have been disastrous). By Jumbo riding a defensive, controlling rade and reducing everything to pure power, van Aert doesn't get to build up that sympathetic goodwill that insulated Sagan from the Clinic for half a decade...