Van Aert is still recovering from pre-Tour sickness
While Wout van Aert's main role in France was to be a key domestique for Jonas Vingegaard, as he has been in past Tours de France, the Belgian was also expected to get in on the action of a first week well suited to him. However, he's been out of the picture by the finale of both the opening stages, and though he's been able to help his team, it turns out he's still coming back from his pre-Tour illness.
"He was sick last week. He couldn't do the Belgian championships," team DS Grischa Niermann reminded media at the finish of stage 2. "He is not in 100% shape, and that can happen because it was very hard. There were only 20 guys there [at the finish]. I'm not worried about it. Wout will come good, and he still helped the team a lot. He pulled on the third-to-last climb where we where we wanted to go hard."
Similar happened coming into the Giro d'Italia where Van Aert was expected to fight for pink in Albania, but was held up by a pre-race bug. While the Tour's first week is crucial, he's got plenty of time to fully recover before his team is in more desperate need of him.
