Van Aert, the baby on the way and the yellow on the farewell to the Tour: “I’ll stay as long as possible”

MOULINS – Wout Van Aert stays. Until we know and he doesn’t know either: “I’ll stay on the Tour as long as possible” he hastened to say and above all to deny the sensational announcement made however by the Danish of Lidl-Trek Mattias Skjelmose: “Wout is about to leave the Tour to be with his wife Sarah, who is expecting their second child.” All true, except for the first part: Van Aert stays and regularly departed from Clermont Ferrand towards Moulins for the eleventh stage. “Perhaps Skjelmose would like me to leave the Tour. I knew nothing of this chatter and was notified by radio shortly before the finish. I had a conversation with my wife and she reassured me about the state of her pregnancy” said the Belgian after the Issoire stage, which saw him protagonist of a strange breakaway with Van der Poel 2 minutes from the real breakaway day and with a few seconds advantage over the yellow jersey group.

Skjlemose’s apologies

“I think Skjelmose should also inform us which flight Wout will take, so at least we will know when to leave him at the airport,” said sporting director Grischa Niermann. Maybe some racers want Wout gone because he makes racing too difficult. It is possible that Wout will leave the Tour to attend the birth of his wife, but at the moment we know that he will stay with us until Paris. If he were to leave after two weeks of racing, that’s fine with us, it always makes sense to have a rider like Van Aert even just for two days.” Skjlemose apologized to Van Aert: “I said something stupid, I heard it in our team meeting on the bus from my director Steven De Jongh and then I talked about it with Danish TV TV2. I apologized, I’m sorry, I’ll try to meet him during the stage to clarify”.

The importance of Van Aert for Vingegaard

The story was born before the Tour, when Van Aert announced the imminent birth of his second son. The date should be after the end of the Tour, but of course it is not possible to know for sure when the event will take place. And so a dispute was born that has been dragging on for days and which makes the climate in the house restless Jumbo-Visma. Without Van Aert, the run of Jonas Vingegaard towards the encore in yellow it would become excessively complicated. Van Aert’s great gregarious work and his sudden gypsies were decisive in 2022. In this Tour, a more team-man and less individualistic Van Aert is nevertheless doing his thing, with long tirades in the mountains and a great work of gregarious support on the plains , also to the detriment of personal income, so far stopped at 0. On the contrary: Van Aert hasn’t won a race since E3 Harelbeke, in March. After giving Ghent-Wevelgem to Laporte, his name disappeared from the top positions, only to return to the national time trial championship. Only a lot of placings, like in this Tour: a second, a third and a fifth place so far. With controversy, too, against Vingegaard himself in the San Sebastian stage won by Lafay. The compactness in the UAE house around Pogacar is instead absolute, despite the presence of Adam Yates in the standings. On the contrary: the Englishman could play the part in the mountains that Primoz Roglic played last year on the Galibier and on the Granon. At that point Vingegaard would find himself alone facing two teammates. With an extra Van Aert, of course, everything would change.