Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) is not going to the Giro with classification ambitions after all. Our compatriot mainly focuses on stages, he reveals in the podcast De Rode Lantaarn. “A ranking cannot be combined with the other things I want.”
In a week’s time, Wout van Aert will take to the field again in Essen, his classic winter preparation for the road season.
Although that preparation does not look like in previous years, because after 8 years Van Aert exchanged coach Marc Lamberts (who left for Bora-Hansgrohe) for Mathieu Heijboer.
“Mathieu puts different accents,” says Van Aert in De Rode Lantaarn. “We have consciously chosen to approach the cross season a little more slowly and build up more progressively towards the road season.”
“The training sessions can be compared, because every trainer in our team has approximately the same philosophy.”
“I think ranking is a shameful sacrifice”
It is not the only adjustment for Wout van Aert. After 5 consecutive participations in the Tour, he wants to go to the Giro for the first time, although he “couldn’t officially confirm that yet”, he said with a knowing smile.
Hypothetically then… What would he aim for in the Giro? “If I were to go to the Giro, I would prefer to go for the stages.”
“I don’t always see limits, but I also dare to look at things realistically. Riding a classification cannot be combined with the other things I want.”
“Maybe I can get a nice result if I sacrifice a lot for it, but I don’t want that.”
“I would hate to say: I was 5th in the Giro, but I was bored for the rest of the year, because I have been on altitude training courses 100 times and I had to lose an extra two kilograms.”
Being the leader for the rankings appeals less to me than winning a race.
Wout van Aert
Is the approach so different? “The explosiveness that you need in the classics is something completely different from not having a bad moment for three weeks in a row,” says Van Aert.
“Now I do many different things, which give me a lot of satisfaction. I think it’s great that I can and am allowed to combine all that.”
“If I had classification ambitions, it is not to win, because my morphology is against me. And if it is not to win, I think it is a shameful sacrifice.”
“I can only just manage the first stage in the Giro, so I’ll go for that,” laughs Van Aert. Van Aert likes the pink jersey after the first stage.
“But being the leader for the classification, that appeals less to me than winning a race.”
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