So near and yet so very far. Wout van Aert's chances of his first Classics win since 2023 and his first ever in Dwars door Vlaanderen evaporated agonisingly close to the line in Waregem at the hands of Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers).
After strong rides with third place in Milan-San Remo and a real shot at victory alongside fellow breakaway Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) during In Flanders Fields last weekend, Van Aert had done everything right in Dwars door Vlaanderen finally to claim the win.
Visibly the strongest rider in the race and able to stay ahead with Niklas Larsen (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) despite the speeding peloton, Van Aert finally took off alone 10 kilometres from the line.
It almost worked, only for Ganna to roar past his right-hand side with less than 100 metres to go, with Van Aert taking the runner-up spot just a few bike lengths behind. All this in the same finish where last year he and two other Visma riders somehow lost to Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost). Of Van Aert's 49 second places in his career to date, this was arguably the most heartbreaking of them all.
"Obviously, it'd have been nicer if the finish was 150 metres earlier, I tried everything I had," Van Aert said later in a TV interview. "I was really dying in the end, and if somebody passed me, then that's racing."
Asked to take viewers through the last 40 kilometres, Van Aert said he had attacked on the Eikenberg, "and when I got there, I had really good companions there with Grégoire and Larsen. We cooperated well.
"But I could feel the pace was slowly decreasing in the end so I had to try and attack in search of victory. Until the very last moment I thought it would be maybe just enough to make it.
"I almost never looked back, I just focussed on my own effort, but after the last corners, suddenly Ganna was there."
He only knew for sure that Ganna would pass him, he said, because he tried not to look back.
"Suddenly I saw a wheel right next to me and then I knew that I would get nothing back.
"It was a good race, it was a bit of a strange race in the middle part, it got launched quite early but there was some parts in the middle bit when we didn't really push on, let's say.
"So a lot of guys could come back and it was quite a while before we could make a proper selection. After the Eikenberg I did a good final, I believe."
On the plus side, Van Aert is clearly coming into the Tour of Flanders in top condition, even if he will have rivals of the calibre of Van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and – as of today's announcement – Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) to face.
But as near-misses go, and with the memory of how Van der Poel just managed to fend off the opposition at E3 Saxo Classic in a very similar scenario fresh in everybody's mind too, Van Aert's defeat at Waregem will likely remain in a league of its own for quite some time.
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