Belgian Cycling has announced their lineup for the UCI Road World Championships in Australia, with Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) headlining the men’s and women’s squads for the road races in Wollongong next month.
Van Aert is set to be among the favourites for the rainbow jersey in the men’s race, which will take in a hilly 266.9km course south of Sydney. He took silver at the 2020 Worlds in Imola, but the Belgian men haven’t won a road world title since Philippe Gilbert in 2012.
Meanwhile, no Belgian woman has won a road world title since Nicole van den Broeck in 1973. Kopecky, who this year won Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, hopes to change that on the 164.3km women’s course.
Van Aert will be able to rely on a strong support squad in Australia, with current Vuelta a España leader Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) heading up the rest of the eight-man men’s team. He and Van Aert had a public falling-out after last year’s Worlds, with Evenepoel going in the early break, later suggesting he had the legs to win, and then skipping the post-race debrief.
Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) and Quinten Hermans (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) are among the other notable names, while Stan Dewulf (AG2R Citroën), Nathan Van Hooydonck (Jumbo-Visma) and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl duo Yves Lampaert and Pieter Serry round out the selection.
“This is very clearly a team that is completely dependent on Van Aert and Evenepoel,” national coach Sven Vanthourenhout told Het Nieuwsblad (opens in new tab). “I only had one question in mind: who can support them in the best possible way at the World Championships? Some of them can also get to the front of the game in certain scenarios and possibly finish it.
“Both are on the same level,” Vanthourenhout said of Van Aert and Evenepoel. “They are aware of that. If they want to become world champions, they will have to find each other anyway.
“But for me it’s a perfectly compatible duo, given their qualities. One has a better sprint, the other a better solo. I assume they know each other and each other’s qualities well enough to know how to deal with that.”
One rider who will feel aggrieved in having missed the cut is La Flèche Wallonne champion Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premier Tech). The 30-year-old took to Twitter after the squad was announced, saying, “Very, very disappointed to be left out the selection for Wollongong 2022. Best of luck to the ones who were selected.”
Vanthourenhout said that he had to…
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