
57 days after his 2024 season was put on hold due to a brutal crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) finally found himself back in a race peloton on stage 1 of the Tour of Norway on Thursday. However, it wasn’t a return to complete normality for the Belgian star.
After recovering from a fractured collarbone, ribs and sternum, rather than compete for the win as he likely would have pre-crash, Van Aert had to “just ride there and suffer in the bunch."
Van Aert finished 60th, 2:52 down on stage winner Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) after finishing his work for Bart Lemmen, who was fourth at the line.