When Wout van Aert gained his first-ever gravel race at Houffalize with a 9 minute benefit on the opposition, the crushing triumph unleashed a wave of hypothesis about what he would possibly nicely obtain two months later within the Gravel World Championships.
Van Aert’s capability to shine on every kind of terrain and in every kind of circumstances has been evident again and again. And that might be what issues essentially the most on Sunday.
Following Houffalize, Van Aert’s general victory on the Tour of Britain did not solely showcase his GC abilities and even his dash leadout expertise. Van Aert additionally secured a fifth place within the World Championships time trial in Glasgow, whereas his capability at scooping up one-day triumphs was evident as just lately because the Coppa Bernocchi in Italy on Monday.
Van Aert’s 2023 street season has already confirmed him as biking’s ‘man who can do all the things.’ And that is not even counting the Classics triumphs, Tour de France assist function and cyclo-cross success that preceded this summer time.
Van Aert recognised after his Houffalize win that the extent of competitors can be on a a lot greater stage in Italy.
Earlier this week Het Nieuwsblad described Van Aert because the favorite for Sunday, however the Belgian’s inexperience at top-level gravel racing can’t be ignored.
The second version of the UCI Gravel World Championships on Sunday will reveal an additional dimension to Van Aert’s many abilities and maybe give him a world title after so many second locations.
His acknowledged objectives for 2023 have been the Street World Championships and including a second Monument win to his 2020 Milan-San Remo title. All of these targets have led to typically painfully slender misses. So, too, did his bid for a fourth World Cyclo-Cross Championships title this February, when an exhilarating duel with Mathieu Van Der Poel concluded with the closest of defeats.
These losses are beginning to add up, even for a rider with Van Aert’s palmares and even permitting for his E3 Harelbeke win in March. In reality, this week L’Equipe even went so far as to explain Van Aert’s 2023 marketing campaign as ‘a season to neglect.’
A rainbow jersey can be one thing to recollect.
Again to his roots
Curiously, after his failure to safe Paris-Roubaix earlier this 12 months, Van Aert headed off-road for a break from racing.
In April he headed again to France for a 300-kilometre two-day gravel trip by way of the Champagne area – the identical a part of the world, because it occurs, the place the Tour de France can be heading subsequent summer time for its personal gravel stage.
Van Aert is a novice at gravel racing however boasts a wonderful document within the racing he has completed off-road in Italy.
Aside from being a winner of Strade Bianche in 2020, Van Aert has by no means completed decrease than fourth in his 4 participations within the iconic Italian race.
Gravel driving has lengthy fashioned a part of Van Aert’s two-wheeled DNA and in a latest interview with Het Nieuwsblad, he revealed that by collaborating within the Gravel World Championships and different speciality occasions, he was truly heading again to his roots.
“I’ve truly been driving on gravel since I used to be a child, once I used to do long-distance rides with my cyclocross bike,” he stated.
“Nonetheless, I began to understand it [more] throughout the pandemic, it allowed me to find new routes and roads throughout coaching. I adopted the speedy rise of the game intently.
“This 12 months I used to be in search of a objective for the tip of the season, and the Gravel World Championships appeared essentially the most fascinating to me.”
The emotional attraction of gravel grew to become obvious when he posted the Houffalize trip to Strava calling the trip: “Once I develop up I need to be a gravel racer.”
One final lesson must be taken from Houffalize concerning Van Aert: this 12 months’s Gravel Worlds might characteristic a whole lot of climbing – twice as a lot as in 2022 and with a 3.9 kilometre ascent in the direction of the end – however it shouldn’t current an issue. The course in Houffalize additionally featured a minimum of 2,000 metres of vertical climbing, on each gravel and dirt-surfaced roads.
Consider Van Aert’s win on the Coppa Bernocchi and at a time of the season when many street riders are starting to fade bodily, it’s clear he ought to be greater than capable of go the space and battle for victory.
His efficiency at Gran Piemonte, the place he was unable to deal with a steep mid-race climb, left one thing to be desired however to evaluate by his post-race feedback, it sounded extra like a glitch within the system quite than a critical drop in kind.
“I had the sensation the entire day we have been a bit in bother,” Van Aert stated, “however we wanted to tempo onerous on the primary climbs, then on the lengthy steep climb it was simply too onerous for me.”
Instantly after Gran Piemonte, Van Aert headed to the Veneto area to take a look at the UCI Gravel World Championship course.
He remained upbeat about his kind and hid probabilities.
“It is a new race, a totally totally different one and I’m trying ahead to that.”
It’s an indication of how severely he’s taking the problem and the way a lot he desires the rainbow jersey.