It happened in a heartbeat. One moment Wout van Aert was locked into the wheel of his teammate, Tiesj Benoot, as the pace ramped up at Dwars door Vlaanderen. The next, he was in a heap on the asphalt with his jersey in tatters, along with his Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix dreams for another year.
Cycling has shown time and time again that while it can be breathtakingly beautiful, it can also be staggeringly cruel. That was no more evident than in the sight of the Belgian on the tarmac, his back visibly bruised and battered as the pain of all of his preparation being laid to waste overwhelmed him. This will no doubt have hurt more than the broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs and broken sternum which his team later confirmed he had suffered in the crash.
What can often go unnoticed is the amount of personal sacrifice that professional bike riders make year on year when tailoring their individual seasons towards particular goals. Family birthdays missed, friends' weddings, holidays and other events all skipped in order to fine tune preparation for the likes of Flanders and Roubaix.
Before Wednesday’s appearance at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Van Aert had spent weeks at altitude on Mount Teide, training hard in order to be at his best for his main targets of the year. According to his Strava account, he racked up more than 75 hours of training in Tenerife and climbed more than 50,000 metres of elevation, all with the aim of building up top physical condition for Flemish Holy Week.
And in just a handful of seconds, that all went up in smoke.
Still, despite the loss of their talisman, there was a beacon of hope for Visma-Lease a Bike at Dwars door Vlaanderen. Making the best of a bad situation, Matteo Jorgenson rode aggressively to victory, replicating the success he felt in winning Paris-Nice earlier this month.
The Dutch team were already missing the injured Christophe Laporte and sick Dylan van Baarle, but the American stepped up when his stricken teammates needed him.
Post-race, Jorgenson spoke at length about witnessing the crash, explaining that he narrowly escaped being involved himself. On social media, where some users allegedly criticised him for pressing on, the 24-year-old sought to explain his actions.
“After a few seconds of shock having barely escaped myself, I tried as hard as I could to bring myself out of it. As we got onto the foot of the Kanarieberg I felt some responsibility to honor what has gone into this,” Jorgenson wrote.
“The sheer man-hours, planning, late nights and early mornings put in by our staff and of course all the teammates that had spent 150k dying in the wind to bring us there in the front… Why would I let all of that go to waste? We already lost our leader, our strongest rider and the heart of our classics team, should we then just throw in the towel?”
“I am proud of how Tiesj Benoot and I continued to fight and I hope we honored the display that Wout van Aert was planning to put on. Anyway, see you all Sunday where all of Visma-Lease a Bike will try to do him proud.”
With the young American in form, and Van Baarle and Laporte potentially back available soon, Visma-Lease a Bike look to be in safe hands for the upcoming Monuments. Don't be surprised to see them honour their fallen leader once again.
