Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike) may not have finished on the final podium of the Volta ao Algarve, or even in the top five overall, but thanks to his devastating long-range attack on stage 5, the Belgian nonetheless turned a somewhat predictable finale into a real cliff-hanger.
After his much-heralded time trial victory on stage 4 and his second place on the Alto do Foia two days before, any last-minute challenges to race leader Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) looked unlikely, with the name of the winner on Sunday's final summit finish on the Alto do Malhão the only major element of the 2024 Volta ao Algarve left to be resolved.
But Van Aert clearly thought otherwise. Around 42 kilometres from the finish of stage 5's hilly trek, a long-range attack by the Belgian, successfully bridging across to the remnants of a 20-man early break along with Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) suddenly seemingly laid the race wide open again.
Ably supported by Jumbo-Visma domestique Per Strand Hagenes, who dropped back from the break, one Aert's advantage along with Healy hovered just above the 1:18 gap on GC between himself and race leader Evenepoel, and forced Soudal-QuickStep to put their collective foot to the accelerator behind.
Van Aert and Healy's hard-fought move finally fizzled out at the foot of the second, definitive ascent of the Malhão after Soudal had used up all their domestiques and had some timely assistance from Bora-Hansgrohe. But together with his sprint stage win on Friday, Van Aert could then head home for Belgium and the Opening Weekend that his gutsy long-range attack had added a whole extra flavour to the 2024 Volta ao Algarve, just when it seemed there were virtually no ingredients left to put in the mix.
"We tried to create a surprise, we wanted to put pressure on the other teams and that worked well," Van Aert, finally 13th on the stage and seventh overall, told reporters at the summit.
"When I attacked it looked good, although I already felt that Healy was a little better than me."
"I had studied the course well in advance, and with my attack, we were also able to put pressure on the other teams."
"We had also hoped to create a little more chaos beforehand so that a few more team workers would have been dropped. Instead, the bunch was still too intact behind when I went for it, which was a shame. That meant my attack had less chance of success."
"Finally the peloton came back pretty quickly" - albeit reduced to just over 20 units as a result of the all-out pursuit behind by Evenepoel's and Dani Martinez's domestiques - "so I deliberately sat up to try something at the last part of the climb."
"Unfortunately, that didn't prove to be possible, but I am satisfied with how this last day played out all the same."
Quite apart from Van Aert's willingness to throw caution to the wind, his teammate Jan Tratnik was able to finish off the Volta ao Algarve with a third place overall. Set to form part of the Het Nieuwsblad squad together with Van Aert, that result bodes more than well for the defending champion of Belgium's first home race of the season. Not only that, Sepp Kuss backed up his already notable sixth place in the Clásica Jaén, with another two solid rides on the Algarve's two summit finishes, claiming third and sixth respectively en route to an eighth place overall.
But the brightest star of the Visma-Lease A Bike show this week has very arguably been Van Aert, both thanks to his stage 3 bunch sprint win and his late attack on stage 5. Going for stage 3 might have only been planned 10 kilometres from the finish in a last-minute decision, while stage 5's move was more meditated, but both were unexpected by the public and added a welcome surprise factor to the race.
"I am satisfied. We are on the last day and the legs still feel good, so it's been a good week," Van Aert said. "I won a stage, and in addition, I was able to show myself in two difficult stages. The terrain was a bit too tough for me to win, but it was beautiful all the same."
