🎥 Wout van Aert receives a special Vuelta helmet from his sons Georges and Jerome, and it's already gone viral

Wout van Aert had to miss this year’s Tour de France due to an elbow injury, and that only makes him more eager to compete in the only Grand Tour left for him: the Vuelta a España. The Belgian team leader for Visma | Lease a Bike is at the starting line with high hopes and a special helmet, presented to him by his young sons.

It should come as no surprise that the video below surpassed 10,000 likes on Visma | Lease a Bike’s channels within an hour. Eldest son Georges walks in carrying his dad Van Aert’s new helmet. “What’s that? Wow, that’s really cool and sweet, guys,” said WVA upon seeing the helmet, completely covered in drawings by Georges and Jerome.

The Tour of Spain begins Saturday with a short, technical time trial through the streets of Monaco. “In recent seasons, I haven’t focused intensely on time trials, although that was the case in my early years. In the run-up to this Vuelta, I’ve been training more specifically on the time-trial bike, with the opening time trial in mind.”

"The time trial offers an immediate chance to compete for the win and could give me a good starting position in the general classification. "Taking the red jersey again in the early stages is definitely a goal for me. We’ll be heading into the mountains fairly quickly, so I want to seize the opportunities that come my way," he says.

That is also the overall goal of Visma | Lease a Bike. “The goal is for the team to be as successful as possible and win as many stages as we can. I’m a rider who can compete on different types of courses, so this Vuelta certainly offers me a few opportunities for a stage win. For the team, a good result in the overall standings is less important.”

Van Aert is certainly not on his own. The stages that suit him are usually right up the alley of Christophe Laporte and Grand Tour debutant Matthew Brennan as well. “With Matthew, we also have a weapon for the pure sprints. He’s shown time and again how fast he is in a bunch sprint. I’m convinced that we’ll both get our chances. The course of the race will determine which card we’ll play.”