Not for the first time, Wout van Aert found himself in the loneliest place in all of Flanders, chasing Mathieu van der Poel. The eternal rivals squared up once again at the E3 Saxo Classic on Friday, and they tracked one another diligently through the Flemish Ardennes until their paths finally diverged on the stiff slopes of the Paterberg.
When the gradient bit, Van der Poel started to wind up for what proved to be the race-winning attack. Van Aert, inevitably, scrambled to respond to the world champion, but he made a rare bike-handling error, crashing as he flicked his bike from the smooth gutter back onto the rough cobbles.
Although Van Aert quickly remounted, Van der Poel had already taken flight. There were still 43km left to race, but the direction of travel already seemed to be irreversible. Even so, Van Aert wasn’t ready to relent just yet, and he set out in lone pursuit of Van der Poel on the Oude Kwaremont after his Visma-Lease A Bike teammate Matteo Jorgenson had stalled the chasing group.
At one point, Van Aert even managed to close to within 15 seconds of Van der Poel, but the effort was not a sustainable one and the rainbow jersey disappeared from the horizon on the cavernous Karnemelkbeekstraat. There ended the contest. Van Aert was joined by Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) in the run-in, but his deficit continued to grow. He rolled home a tired third, 1:34 behind Van der Poel.
When we saw Wout crash on the Paterberg, the feeling in the car was, ‘Oh shit, what’s happening today?
Directeur sportif Arthur van Dongen
“The crash was all-important for the race,” Van Aert said as he waited to mount the podium. “It took a lot of strength to fight back. When I went after Van der Poel alone, we seemed to be evenly matched for a while, but after the Karnemelkbeekstraat it was hard to keep up my pace. I was glad I was able to stay in Jasper Stuyven’s wheel for a little while to make it to the finish.”
Van Aert conceded that the race-defining incident was entirely of his own making as he tried to dive past Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and follow Van der Poel’s acceleration on the Paterberg. It remains to be seen if his injuries will have consequences for his Tour of Flanders challenge, but the incident ended his hopes of a third straight E3 win.
“It was an unfortunate crash, but it was a stupid mistake from myself. From then on, the whole race changed for me,” Van Aert admitted. “It was pretty stupid: I wanted to jump up the cobblestones to gain some places, but…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…