Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) expressed his disappointment at lacking out on the stage 18 victory on the Tour de France the place he completed ninth on the day after being half of a big breakaway on the roads to Barcelonnette.
The Belgian mentioned that whereas he felt like a marked rider among the many 37-man breakaway, he refused to make use of that as an excuse and was merely not in a position to reply when Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) attacked during the last ascent of the day, Côte des Demoiselles Coiffées, with Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) and eventual stage 18 winner Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny).
“It is a disgrace apparently everyone is aware of my quantity… No, It could be actually foolish to level that out as an excuse,” mentioned Van Aert with amusing. “I do know it is laborious to win from the break for everybody, and I’ve to say when Kwiatkowski went, he was robust, and I used to be form of on the restrict on the highest of the KOM.
“However yeah, it is a disgrace that afterwards, it was truly the primary second of the race after I thought, ‘Now I’ve to gamble a bit.’ We had been into essentially the most straightforward a part of the stage. So, I mentioned to Bart [Lemmen] to leap with the counterattacks, and I used to be sitting a bit within the again and got here down the descent, and all the pieces was over.”
The breakaway cut up after the ultimate climb with about 35km remaining after an preliminary assault by Kwiatkowski. Campenaerts and Vercher bridged throughout to the Ineos Grenadiers rider, and the trio succeeded to the end line, 22 seconds forward of a chase-group dash of six received by Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek).
Van Aert received the third dash on the street for ninth place at 37 seconds again, as soon as once more lacking out on victory. Though he has not secured a stage win, he has had two second-place finishes and 4 high sixes at this Tour de France.
His final stage win got here on the 2022 Tour when he received the stage 20 time trial forward of teammate Jonas Vingegaard into Rocamadour. He’ll have to attend one other yr so as to add to his 9 Tour stage wins, with the trio of remaining levels all for the GC riders.
He mentioned that he had been happy together with his type, significantly approaching the Olympic Video games and that he’s not trying to the stage 21 time trial on the Tour de France.
“[I’m] completely happy. It is actually progressing in course, and particularly at present, I felt actually good,” he mentioned.
“The main focus shouldn’t be actually on the time trial. The Olympic Video games are arising quickly. Sunday won’t be an actual relaxation day, however one with a watch on subsequent week.”
Van Aert and Remco Evenepoel will compete for Belgium within the elite males’s time trial on July 27 on the Olympic Video games. He’ll then lead a robust Belgian squad alongside Evenepoel, Tiesj Benoot and Jasper Stuyven for help within the elite males’s street race on August 3.
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