Van Aert wants to hit back with new plan: 'Different dynamic without Pogacar, Van der Poel is a bit above the rest'

Wout van Aert is a welcome guest, so when he makes time on the media day of Jumbo-Visma (soon to be Visma | Lease a Bike) to chat about more than just his last race, we're only too happy to bite. Here's twenty minutes with the Belgian superstar, about the Giro d'Italia, being a classification rider, the Tour of Flanders without Tadej Pogacar, Nathan Van Hooydonck and more....

We meet Van Aert at a large round table. He has already done several interviews, but as soon as the recorder starts, the smile appears on his face again. A professional, who likes to take the time for an interview, if possible. Let's first get the elephant in the room out of the way: the Giro d'Italia in 2024 and no Tour de France. 'I am very much looking forward to that Giro. I've only ever ridden the Tour de France. That's a great race and the biggest race there is, but the months of May, June and July are always fixed in terms of preparation when you do the Tour. It's always the same route and now it feels like an innovation to break that.'

'It's not that I don't like the Tour, or that I don't want to be there. But I also like other races, and if I want to do the Giro and the Vuelta once, I have to make choices,' Van Aert explained again, trying to clarify his program for next season. 'The focus for the classics will always be there, so the Giro-Tour combination is not an option then. There was more one option: skipping the Tour. When the men start in July, I will miss it, I think. Last year I actually wanted to do the Giro, but then we decided to do the Tour. So it was in my head for some time and with the Games in 2024 it makes the choice easier.'

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Van Aert with different program better than ever in spring?

Van Aert's answers already contain a lot of information. Time for his full program: which begins on Feb. 12 with the Clásica Jaén. He then rides the Tour of the Algarve and, after two weeks of training, heads to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. This will be followed by altitude training. 'I m not riding theItalian classics. I will do a training camp in March towards the E3 and the other Flemish races. After such a training camp I always feel strong and my level will already be better towards the training camp, because I will do races like the Algarve and the Opening Weekend. So the altitude training in March will not be so much about laying a good foundation, but more about finding those last few percentages. I'm looking forward to trying that. With a small training camp after the classics, I can also take the form to the Giro.

In the Flemish spring, the E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen and then De Ronde and Paris-Roubaix will pass by. A new chance to win a Monument, something that failed again in 2023. 'To be honest, I don't think I was ever at my best level in 2023. There were several reasons for that, but I never felt like I did in 2022," Van Aert is referring to an excellent spring and, above all, breathtakingly good Tour de France.

'I felt I was missing a percent and yet with that form I could have won more races, if things had gone differently,' he continued, no doubt referring to his puncture in Paris-Roubaix. But there was more: 'I got sick after the cyclocross season, that cost a lot of energy heading into the spring. From there I was never really stable, it was with too many ups and downs. After that there were some small things, but in general you can say that after the World Cross Championship you have a month to prepare for spring. If everything goes well, that can work. But if something goes against it, it becomes difficult. That's how I experienced it.'

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Van der Poel top favorite, especially now that Pogacar is not competing

With better legs, Van Aert hopes to create already one condition to strike in his beloved classics. Tadej Pogacar further provided an important external condition. The Slovenian will ride the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 2024 and to arrange that, he will skip the cobbled classics. Thus, the winner of the Tour of Flanders will not be there next season. A Godsend, right Wout? 'Without Pogacar, the dynamics in the Tour of Flanders will change. His tactics were simple: attack from afar and keep attacking until everyone was unloaded. That was a danger for all the specialists, because he always made the race tough and we were empty at a certain point. Now there will be different racing.'

The chances of winning may become a little better without Pogacar, but Van Aert obviously still has to deal with one Mathieu van der Poel. The world champion has also made another goal of the spring and in 2023 he rode Van Aert out of the wheels painfully several times. 'How I will handle it, I don't know yet, but Mathieu made a step in 2023 compared to the rest. He proved in the spring and at the World Championships that he is a bit above the rest at this point. He is the big favorite for me, if you asked me now. If he reaches the same level, it will be hard to follow him. It will be up to him to make the course," it sounds respectfully.

And yet it was Jumbo-Visma that still controlled so dominantly in 2023. Monuments may not have been won, but in the rest of the spring, a black-and-yellow actually always won. Besides Van der Poel's strength, Van Aert notes on that front that his team is taking off a serious coat with the sudden quitting of Nathan Van Hooydonck. "It's going to be weird. In the classics team we have a lot of guys for the final and Nathan was always the guy who put us in position and really rode for us. He never thought about his own result and we will miss that. We will have to find someone who also has those qualities. It is what it is, but with Matteo Jorgenson, Jan Tratnik and Per Strand Hagenes, we have three super strong riders coming in. We have to be confident that we will be at least as strong.'

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Autumn also full of goals for Van Aert

Enough about the classics, because what is Van Aert going to do once May is over and the Tour begins? The answer is clear: project Olympics. The all-rounder wants to score at the time trial, a week after the Tour, and then does the road race as well. A race of its own, because countries may start with a maximum of four riders. And who do you bring from Belgium? Van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Jasper Philipsen, Arnaud De Lie.... Or all of them? 'Controlling the race with four will be difficult, so it might be an idea to bring four leaders, with four chances to win. If you have two leaders and two helpers, then maybe you can have a little more influence on the race. That will be a difficult decision, that's up to the national coach. Sven Vanthourenhout will start the talks on that soon and then I am confident that we will have a great team.'

After the Games, a second grand tour is basically on the cards. 'With riding the Vuelta a España I will hopefully find my climbing legs. I will need those because shortly after that is the World Cup in Zurich, where I will be the underdog given the course. It will be a tough World Cup, but if I am at my best level, I will have proven that I can compete with the best climbers in the world. That's my goal, to get to that level. Then the World Cup is possible.'

Is there still one facet missing from this story, something about which a lot has already been said and written. Because how does Van Aert look back on all those stories and opinions about him being a potential classification rider in a major tour? 'I didn't really get it, the rumors were suddenly there. It was never something I or the team expressed, so maybe there was someone who would like to see it. We never thought about it, it was alwaysthe plan to go to the Giro and go for stages. I don't think in the future I will go for a GC. A few years ago it was in my head for later, to try, without a concrete plan. But you have to change so much in the way you race that I don't want to do it anymore. I want to be the attractive rider I am now, where I can combine a lot in one season. That's not possible if you want to go for a classification. So no, I don't think I'm ever going to do that, but you can try to ask again every year.