Despite his disappointment, Wout van Aert could only smile when the question was put to him in the mixed zone in Villablino, where Kaden Groves had just pipped him to victory on stage 14 of the Vuelta a España.
"In Danish, we have a saying: 'The surgery went well but the patient died.' Was it a case of that today?" the reporter asked.
Van Aert took the question in the spirit in which it was intended. "That's a good one," he said. "I never heard it, but for sure I will remember it."
It was, on balance, a succinct way to describe Van Aert and Visma-Lease a Bike's afternoon. They had wagered, correctly, that Van Aert was climbing well enough to survive the interminable category 1 ascent of the Puerto de Leitariegos in the finale, and they cut their cloth accordingly. The men in yellow and black kept a powerful breakaway within touching distance all day before setting a brisk pace on the Leitariegos to dissuade any would-be attackers.
"It wasn't a risk because we know he's really strong on the climbs," was Cian Uijtdebroeks' assessment when he rolled across the finish. The Belgian had played a key role in dictating the tempo, even if the Visma MVP was probably the evergreen Robert Gesink, lining up in the final race of his long career.
Although Visma's tempo sufficed to hoover up the escapees and prevent any accelerations on the Leitariegos – "The pace wasn't easy, I think I had something like 290 watts average power all day," said Uijtdebroeks – it wasn't enough to burn off a number of dangermen for the sprint over the other side, including Groves, the most obvious threat.
Even so, with three wins already to his name on this Vuelta, Van Aert entered the 60-strong bunch sprint with justifiable confidence. On the gently rising finishing straight on Avenida Gancedo, he kicked more or less in unison with Groves, but he was just about outmatched by the Australian in the last 50 metres.
"Obviously I feel disappointed because of the teamwork we showed. Missing out on the win is a hard pill to swallow," said Van Aert. "To be honest, I thought the climb would be a tiny bit harder, but it was a really shallow one. It's never easy, but it was quite easy on the wheels. The sprinters were not dropped, but I was still confident that I could do my best sprint and try to finish it off. But then when I came to the last 50 metres, I cramped, and Kaden was a tiny bit stronger."
Van Aert continues to lead mountains classification
Van Aert has had an all-action Vuelta to this point, as testified by his two visits to the podium in Villablino on Saturday evening, first for the green jersey of the points classification and then to don the polka dot jersey of the king of the mountains. He downplayed the idea, however, that his efforts in chasing points had blunted his speed here.
"Maybe, but on the other hand I think Kaden had quite a hard day yesterday in the breakaway," Van Aert said. "With hindsight, it's always easy to win races. Looking to today, I think we did amazing. It was a race that no other team dared to control. We did it, we made it a sprint. Again, it's just a pity that I couldn't finish it off, but it was really nice teamwork."
His almost accidental interest in the king of the mountains competition has been the subject of some debate in his native Belgium, with former national coach José De Cauwer suggesting on Sporza that Van Aert should forget about the polka dots and save his energy for his tilts at the European and world road titles in the coming weeks.
Van Aert might reasonably retort that he has ample time to recover after the Vuelta. Besides, after a season compromised by the crash that ruined his Classics, he has the air of a man eager simply to enjoy his clearest run of luck and best run of form of the entire campaign. In any case, he was able to pick up maximum mountain points on the Leitariegos with a minimum of effort.
"The mountains points were quite for free there, so it's good," said Van Aert, who now has double the points of second-placed Marc Soler in the mountains classification. He was less enthusiastic, mind, about chasing more points by getting in the break on the road to Cuitu Negru on Sunday. "Now I feel tired from all my efforts in the last week. I will see tomorrow, but I think it will be more a day of counting down to the rest day."
By Van Aert's reckoning, stage 17 to Santander will be his next opportunity to chase victory and by that point, he might already have mathematically secured the points classification. On Saturday evening in Villablino, however, his thoughts were only for the chance that had just passed him by.
"Preferably it would have been better if we had been able to ride a bit faster on the last climb, but we had to use all of our guys to bring back a strong breakaway, which is normal on a day like today," Van Aert said. "So we couldn't have done much different. The only one who needed to be stronger was myself."
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