It wasn’t quite Diego Maradona in Foxborough, but it was a message of defiance all the same. “Ik moet juist niks!” Wout van Aert shouted into the lens of the television camera as he slowed to a halt after winning E3 Saxo Bank in a three-up sprint: “I don’t have to prove anything.
Van Aert has raised the bar higher than most in recent seasons, but that doesn’t inoculate him from criticism when he fails to clear the required height. A bout of illness in February saw the Jumbo-Visma rider make a slower start to the season than anticipated. It’s all relative – he was third in Milan-San Remo, after all – but the chatter in Belgium was steadily rising all week ahead of this definitive dress rehearsal for the Tour of Flanders.
