It keeps piling up for Wout van Aert. While the cyclo-cross circus descended on Benidorm last weekend, the leader of Visma | Lease a Bike will once again watch from a distance. His winter in the field ended weeks ago after the fall in Mol, and that is also causing increasing concern for José De Cauwer.
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“The bad luck continues to follow him”
De Cauwer was present in Benidorm at the World Cup Cross, but Wout van Aert was logically missing. His ankle fracture after the crash in Mol brought an early end to his cyclo-cross season. “Yes, bad luck continues to follow him,” says De Cauwer. According to him, that has become the big problem in the course of Van Aert’s career.
The former national coach mainly sees how the pattern continues to repeat itself. “The constant in Van Aert’s career is no longer there,” he said sharply. Not due to a lack of effort or quality, but due to a series of setbacks that keep throwing a spanner in the works.
A long list of setbacks
According to De Cauwer, the fall in Mol is not an isolated incident. On the contrary, he places that crash in a longer line of incidents that Van Aert has already had to swallow.
“You have the super heavy crash in Pau during the Tour de France, you have the Kanarieberg, you have the crash in the Tour of Spain and now this… It’s a lot, a lot,” he sums up.
These are moments that not only leave a physical mark, but also weigh mentally. De Cauwer suspects that this sequence is also starting to get into the rider’s head. Every new start comes with baggage from the past, and that makes it more difficult to race with an open mind.
