57 days after his 2024 season was placed on maintain as a consequence of a brutal crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) lastly discovered himself again in a race peloton on stage 1 of the Tour of Norway on Thursday. However, it wasn’t a return to finish normality for the Belgian star.
After recovering from a fractured collarbone, ribs and sternum, moderately than compete for the win as he doubtless would have pre-crash, Van Aert needed to “simply journey there and endure within the bunch.”
Van Aert completed sixtieth, 2:52 down on stage winner Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) after ending his work for Bart Lemmen, who was fourth on the line.
This outcome did not register under the expectations Van Aert or Visma-Lease a Bike had about his first race again, however the born-champion in Van Aert couldn’t assist feeling a little bit disillusioned, all the identical.
“It could also be noticeable that I’m not very pleased, as a result of I had not hoped to endure like this. But I simply must get on with it now,” Van Aert advised Sporza after the stage.
“It is just not a traditional feeling for me to simply journey there and endure within the peloton, however I do know that that is a part of it now.”
Van Aert narrowly averted catastrophe within the remaining as much as Voss Resort when he tapped the again wheel of a Uno-X rider 2.1km from the road. After already feeling the ache having helped get his teammates in place, he opted to cease his effort.
“It went fairly properly. It was a managed race, which was welcome. It was a troublesome course. I’m proud of the way it went,” stated Van Aert as he summed up the day to Belgian media.
“I attempted to maintain the blokes in place within the remaining, however it was hectic. We weren’t at all times staying collectively absolutely. I needed to get them no less than inside 1.5km of the road, however then I tapped the rider in entrance of me and I misplaced my momentum.
“I then determined to let go. Things have been already on the restrict for me from the beginning of the ultimate climb. I might really feel in my lungs that it had been a very long time since I had gone so deep.”
Today’s stage finishes with one other, more durable, uphill take a look at to Gullingen on a 5.5km climb averaging 8.7% . It’s not a day for Van Aert to compete however one other nice probability to get some arduous racing within the legs and rebuild his rhythm for targets nonetheless to come back in 2024.
“I knew from coaching that I should not be afraid to sit down on the bike for 3.5 hours. It’s typically solely afterwards that I really feel how I’m doing, that is why I’d sound a bit hesitant,” Van Aert stated.
“That issues can solely get higher any further? I hope so too. Luckily I did not have any issues on the bike and hopefully, I can get well properly now.”
After the crash in Belgium dominated him out of the remainder of the Classics and compelled him to drag out earlier than making his Giro d’Italia debut, Van Aert is now in competition for a spot on Visma-Lease A Bike’s Tour de France group.
Team boss Richard Plugge not too long ago advised Cyclingnews that the group “are very hopeful that Wout can come to the Tour de France.” But that can largely rely upon how he progresses on the Tour of Norway with 36 days till the Grand Depart in Florence.
If not on the Tour, then Van Aert can be hoping to be again at his most for the Paris Olympics, the place he’ll tackle the time trial and highway race on July 27 and August 3.
