Three stages of the Vuelta a España, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, and an opening spring salvo of victory in Portugal would be a decent annual report card for 99% of the peloton. The only problem is that Wout van Aert is not 99% of the peloton. He’s not even the other 1%. He’s that 0.1%.
On stage 16 of the Vuelta a España, off the front in the hunt for more green jersey points – maybe even more KOM points – to add to both of those classifications he leads, Van Aert crashed on the descent off the penultimate climb of the day, the Collada Llomena, before the ascent up to the summit finish of Lagos de Covadonga.
Jayco-AlUla’s Felix Engelhardt slipped around a potentially damp corner at high-speed, with Visma-Lease a Bike’s Van Aert and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) falling behind him. Van Aert was back on his feet, bent over with his bike stood upright, dirty from the muddy wall, and remounted.
After a few pedal strokes, Van Aert climbed off, turning around to give more clue as to his ailments, with a bloodied and banged-up knee in full view (the extent of his injuries was not immediately known).
Sitting on the back of his team vehicle, Van Aert looked in considerable discomfort, potentially about to either pass out or vomit, as the TV cameras then cut away back to the race to leave him in peace.
Van Aert’s abandon vacates the lead of both the sprint and KOM competitions, the former of which he had pretty much wrapped up with 291 points to Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Kaden Groves’ total of 182. The Australian sprinter will now assume the green jersey and holds an 87-point lead over Astana Qazaqstan’s Harold Tejada.
Then, in the KOM competition, Van Aert was tied for first with UAE Team Emirates’ Jay Vine at 46 points entering the day. Vine will face competition from Equipo Kern Pharma’s Pablo Castrillo on 37 points but with many more opportunities left on the road this third week.
For Wout van Aert, the Vuelta a España was a chance to re-find his previous peloton-beating form ahead of European and World Championships, and after a season disrupted by injury and domestique duties for Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour de France ambitions.
The three stage wins Van Aert had picked up at the Vuelta so far will provide little consolation for a rider who had his Spring Classics campaign ruined by a crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen just ahead of Holy Week. This Spanish Grand Tour was looking like it was providing the perfect launchpad for the Belgian to capture either a European championship next week or rainbow Worlds jersey later this month, as he opted to leave the TT bike to one side as he prepared to go all-in on both road races. It remains to be seen how this crash might affect his preparation – or ability to compete – for either race.
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