Why does Wout van Aert’s rumored plan of racing the Giro and never the Tour make no sense? Spencer Marin breaks down why it will be silly for Wout van Aert to race the 2024 Giro d’Italia and miss out the Tour de France in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.
– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton e-newsletter. Enroll right here for full entry. –
No Tour’23 for Wout?
A latest report within the Italian sports activities day by day newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, has claimed that Jumbo-Visma (quickly to be Visma-Lease a Bike) plans to ship Wout van Aert to the Giro d’Italia in 2024 as their GC chief in addition to skipping the Tour de France to concentrate on preparation for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.
Ought to We Consider This?
Contemplating simply what number of items of serious biking information have dropped just lately by way of single-sourced tales that haven’t panned out in actuality, it will be sensible to view this with a wholesome diploma of skepticism, particularly since even simply the concept Van Aert might present helps the Giro court docket sponsors and enhance their TV rights worth, and the proprietor of La Gazzetta, RCS MediaGroup runs the Giro.
With this in thoughts, it is very important do not forget that this information may be traced again to a single La Gazzetta piece, the workforce has formally launched nothing, and concrete plans for the approaching season possible received’t be in place till after the workforce’s mid-December coaching camp/sponsor reveal.
Why Would Wout van Aert Do This?
Taking a large look and assuming that is true, that is undoubtedly a daring and thrilling transfer that may ship a much-needed star increase for the Italian grand tour, and permit members of the ‘Wout van Aert is definitely a GC rider’ secret society to see our thought experiment play out in actual life. And, even when he fails in his GC bid, it should present us simply what number of phases he can win at a grand tour if he isn’t on domestique obligation for a GC chief.
There’s undoubtedly a wholesome debate available on whether or not the 2024 Giro’s comparatively delicate course and enormous variety of particular person time trials (68 kilometers) would enable the hulking Van Aert to compete for general victory.
- I personally consider that he might, however provided that he was keen to lose a major quantity of weight, which might all however finish his one-day Classics and stage-hunting profession (see: Geraint Thomas) and, mockingly, harm his means to win each the Highway Race and Time Trial on the Olympics later within the season.
However, past the GC classification, I consider that if Van Aert did go to the 2024 Giro d’Italia, it will possible be much less about chasing a GC end result and extra about freely chasing stage victories with out the burden of appearing as a domestique for a GC chief, with an added advantage of skipping the Tour de France to move off to devoted altitude camps in June and July to organize particularly for the Highway Race and Time Trial occasions on the Paris Olympic Video games in early August.
All of it doesn’t make sense
Why This Doesn’t Make Sense
As an alternative of debating if Van Aert can go to the Giro and critically problem for the general win, I believe it’s extra fascinating to dive into whether or not or not he ought to and, most significantly, if his rumored plan of focusing on the cobbled Classics (Tour of Flanders & Paris-Roubaix), racing the Giro and skipping the Tour de France to organize for the Olympics makes any sense.
Whereas racing the Giro d’Italia earlier than decamping to a solitary high-altitude coaching camp to organize for the time trial and highway race on the Paris Olympics would possibly, theoretically, make sense at first look, upon nearer inspection, the plan begins to collapse.
Setting apart why a celebrity rider would chuck apart the game’s greatest race, the Tour de France, to concentrate on the Olympics, which, if we’re trustworthy, is a considerably gimmicky one-off national-team race that doesn’t carry the identical heft as biking’s Monuments, the logistics of this plan go away one thing to be desired.
Van Aert aiming for the Olympics
– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton e-newsletter. Enroll right here for full entry. –
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