On the tenth floor of the Van der Valk hotel in Gent on Thursday afternoon, a pair of television cameramen stood sentry by the elevator, waiting intently to capture Wout van Aert‘s arrival.
Every time the doors rolled open, they would hopefully raise their cameras only to quickly lower them again in disappointment once they realised it wasn’t him.
The scene replayed itself enough times for the men to become quietly exasperated once they realised they were only repeatedly recording the poor timekeeping of startled journalists for posterity, but eventually, the man of the moment emerged from the lift, flanked by Jumbo-Visma teammate Christophe Laporte and directeur sportif Maarten Wynants.
Jumbo-Visma’s collective might has been the story of the Spring thus far, but here in Belgium, three days before the start of the Tour of Flanders, all eyes are trained firmly on Van Aert, a home favourite still seeking his first victory in his home race.
This week, his every move seems to find its way into the public domain, its significance amplified and sometimes distorted, even by his friends. It must be a claustrophobic experience.
On Wednesday evening, his sometime training partner, the former pro Jan Bakelants, told a podcast that Van Aert had risked a fatal accident when a cement mixer deliberately passed close to their group earlier this week. By Thursday morning, the comments were splashed all over Flemish media outlets – ‘Did Wout van Aert risk death?’ trilled one headline.
Come Thursday afternoon, when he took a seat for his pre-race press conference in the hotel bar, Van Aert found himself wearily explaining that Bakelants had rather overegged the gravity of the incident.
“These are incidents that unfortunately happen almost every day on the road,” Van Aert said. “But we are still alive. It was certainly not a safe situation, but I was not nearly dead either.
“The timing was especially unfortunate. I received a lot of worried messages, even from my wife, who thought I had almost been run over at that very moment.”
Of greater concern to Van Aert was the news that teammate Dylan van Baarle would miss the Tour of Flanders after falling ill during the week. The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner, a new arrival at Jumbo-Visma this season, was due to be a key element in the team’s plan of attack. Despite the team’s depth, Van Baarle’s absence is a blow to Van Aert’s hopes to overcome Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel.
“It changes a lot, of course,” Van Aert confessed….
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