Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) has pulled no punches about his 2023 season, saying he never reached his top level and that he never felt as good on the bike as in 2022.
Van Aert’s highest-profile victory in 2023 was at the E3 Saxo Classic and he also claimed podium finishes at the Road World Championships, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Outside the World Tour, he also clinched a second career win in the Tour of Britain and the Belgian time trial title.
However, Van Aert’s Tour de France was far less successful than in 2022, when he picked up multiple stage wins in a huge variety of terrains en route to the points jersey in Paris, a season where he also won Het Nieuwsblad and the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France along with a first victory in E3 and multiple stages in Paris-Nice and the Critérium du Dauphiné.
Van Aert was recently victorious in his opening cyclo-cross race of 2023 at Essen Exact Cross on December 9th. However, when talking to reporters at the Visma-Lease A Bike team launch on Thursday, Van Aert played down his chances of further success in his first cyclocross duel of 2023 with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) at Zilvermeercross in Mol on Friday.
He did insist, though, that he was already feeling the benefits of a reduced ‘cross program, with only 8-10 races on his 2023-2024 schedule rather than 14 as in previous years.
“I’ve already got the feeling of being fresher,” Van Aert told La Dèrniere Heure. “This discipline [cyclocross] maybe took up too much time on my calendar in the last few years.
“We’ve tried to create a more balanced program that avoids too many races in quick succession which reduces your chances of training.
“I’m not tackling my first duel with Mathieu this Friday with the best approach because I’ve just done a recon of Paris-Roubaix and had our first training camp in Spain, as well as the team presentation. But I’ll try to be up there on the front, where I usually am and where I want to be!”
Despite reducing his cyclocross program, after Mol on Friday, Van Aert will race four more times in 2023, the World Cup round in Antwerp on December 23, the Exact Cross in Loenhout on December 28, the Superprestige at Diegem on December 29 and the World Cup in Hulst on December 30.
But regardless of whatever results he achieves in these final five events this year, Van Aert said that he never reached the peak of his condition in 2023 and that compared to 2022, his feelings on the bike were never as…
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