Unfortunately, Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) had to finish his season in mid-July, during the Tour de France after a horror crash on the 13th stage (ITT). Nevertheless, he has a solid first half of the year with Wolrd Tour stage wins and podium places during the Spring Classics season.
5. Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 5 (13/06/2019)
Wout van Aert won the ITT on the 4th stage of the race and doubled the number of his World Tour victories on the next day. It wasn’t a usual bunch sprint, the teams of the sprinter hadn’t had time to build up their lead-out trains, the breakaway trio was caught just in during the penultimate km, right after this Philippe Gilbert (Deceunick-Quick Step) and Edval Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) tried to success with a late attack.
Wout van Aert started his sprint after the last corner (around 400 m to go), same time as Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck Quick Step) did, besides them also Sam Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) had a good move, but he wasn’t able to outsprint the Belgian rider, finished only on the 2nd place.
4. E3 BinckBank Classic (29/03/2019)
His 2nd place at the E3 BinckBank Classic was Wout van Aert’s best results during the Spring Classics season. He was able to join Greg Van Avermaet (CCC) when the Olympic Champion launched an attack inside the final 20 km. Whit their participation a four-man-group formed to chase the Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-Quick-Step), the solo breakaway rider at the front of the race. the other two chasers were Alberto Bettiol (Education First) and Julgels’ teammate Zdenek Stybar. Jungels was caught 6 km to go.
Although Van Avermaet was the most active, and the race winner Stybar was the most cunning from this bunch, Wout van Aert gave a solid performance during the late phase of the race.
3. Tour de France Stage 10 (15/07/2019)
Another (almost ) unusual sprint, another Wout van Aert victory. One of the most memorable events of this stage was the crosswind and its consequences (f. e. Thibaut Pinot lost time), no wonder, that only a reduced main bunch arrived the finish town first. But with most of the sprinters of the peloton. Inside the final km Michael Mattews (Sunweb) seemed to have the best chances to win the race, because he had a lead-out man. But everything changed when most of the sprinters launched their sprints around 200 m to go.
It was thrilling to see from a wide camera shot, how Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe), Jasper Philipsen ( UAE Team Emirates), Sonny Colbrelly (Bahrain-Merida), Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Wout Van Aert and Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quick Step) rode side by side. Viviani might be in the first position for a moment, but in the end, van Aert crossed the finish line first.
2. Strade Bianche (09/03/2019)
The first memorable race in Van Aer’s road cyclist carrier was definitely the Strade Bianche in 2018, where he finished 3rd. It happened the same also in 2019.
When Jakob Fuglsang launched his attack 24 km to go, first only Van Aert was able to join him, Julian Alaphilippe, the winner of the race caught up a bit later. Fuglsang and Alaphilippe dropped him, but the Belgian rider came back right during crossing the 1 km gate. Unfortunately, he couldn’t go with the other two after Fuglsang’s final move (400 km), but his 3rd place is still a very impressive one.
Paris-Roubaix (14/04/2019)
One can say easily, a 22nd place isn’t a big thing even at the Paris-Roubaix, but the reason, why I’ve chosen this race for the first race, happened after Arenberg. During the infamous 19th sector (96 km to go) Van Aert dropped from the main bunch and had to chase them for many many km long. He rode a risky ride among the team cars (had more luck than Tiesj Benoot), ha some mechanic issues, later crashed, but when Peter Sagan started to chase Philippe Gilbert 54 km to go, Van Aert was already in this group.
A six-man-group established shortly with Van Aert, Sagan, the two Deceuninck-Quick Step riders Gilbert and Yves Lampaert, Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin) and Sep Vanmarcke (Education First). After his efforts of catching up with the peloton van Aert wasn’t able to go with the other five riders, he was the first, who dropped from this group inside the final 20 km. But still he was one of the main protagonists of the race.
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