Visma-Lease a Bike have provided a positive update on Wout van Aert's condition, stating that he is on track for a possible start to his road season at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad later this month.
The Belgian star is currently training at altitude in Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains, as he continues to recover from fracturing his ankle at a cyclo-cross race back in January. However, the biggest thorn in Van Aert's side hasn't been his ankle, but the weather, with cold temperatures and snow restricting him to training on the rollers until today.
Van Aert jokingly captioned his Thursday Strava ride as "I can’t really feel the Spanish vibe yet, so decided to ride in Switzerland", but today he was back outdoors, riding alongside Davide Piganzoli on a four-hour, 127-kilometre training ride.
"We always planned that altitude training camp, and it seemed for a while that Wout would be able to go there. Of course, it's very important that it worked out," said Visma's Head of Racing, Grischa Niermann, to Wielerflits.
"He's still in rehabilitation. Despite that, he can train quite well. I don't think he could race yet. Training isn't a problem.
"He can still cycle, he can still train. Maybe he can't fully put weight on his ankle yet. But it's going as we hoped. It's going according to plan. At the moment, the schedule still allows him to start on Opening Weekend."
Van Aert will be at altitude for three weeks before heading for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a race he previously won in 2022, before making a highly-anticipated return to the Italian Classics at Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, another two races he's already captured.
When he came down at the Exact Cross Mol on January 2 and his team announced that he would require surgery after fracturing his ankle, it looked like the Belgian's spring campaign could be in doubt.
But as he put it at their media day just two weeks after, "if I was a runner or anything else, I would be out for months, but hopefully, as a cyclist, it will be good enough."
Niermann is eyeing a peak at the Monuments for Van Aert, of course, with Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders still eluding him up to this point. It's a big unknown if he'll make it to the shape required to challenge Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), but he's heading in the right direction.
"We hope he'll be in top form later on. But we do expect him to be in top form for the Omloop," said Niermann. "How big the steps he'll make during the training camp are, we can't say much at this point. But he can train as usual right now, and that's the most important thing."
He's been upping the intensity ever since jumping back on the bike sooner than was perhaps expected, and has shown several videos from his rehab process, with his ankle first in a boot and now covered in strapping.
Van Aert will be hoping the weather stays clearer and Visma don't rue changing their February altitude camp location from Mount Teide in Tenerife to Sierra Nevada in southern Spain.
Uno-X Mobility's Jonas Abrahamsen is another rider training in the area, and he jokingly commented, "I have prepared the skis ready for you," on Van Aert's first indoor Strava upload from camp. Abrahamsen and his teammates had already been cooped up inside to avoid the snow.
"Conditions like that are never good, of course. I think it's really bad everywhere in Europe right now. But from what I've heard, it will get better in a day or two," added the head of racing.
"The first few days are definitely more about adaptation; the boys are on their rollers now and they don't have to do any long training sessions yet.
"Let's just hope it doesn't snow there for three weeks. Unfortunately, we don't have a say in that regard."
