'A nice boost, but I still have work to do' — Van Aert on his stage win and the road to the Tour

Wout van Aert claimed his second victory of the 2026 season on Thursday at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. After Paris-Roubaix, another win on French soil — and one that brought a particular kind of relief after a difficult start to his Tour de France build-up.

"Winning is always beautiful, especially in a big race like this," Van Aert told flash interviewer Sébastien Piquet of ASO. The Belgian took the stage by holding off Hugo Hofstetter (NSN) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) in the bunch sprint.

He was not, however, ready to draw sweeping conclusions. "Honestly, the form is probably not that much better than at the start, but the last few days have been a little easier," he corrected himself. "That suited my current form better. It was a tough start, and even in this stage it was mentally difficult — I was still feeling the effects of my crash before the race," Van Aert admitted. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider had crashed in training a few days before the race began.

Having won the bunch sprint behind the break on Wednesday — in the stage won by Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) — he finally took the outright win on Thursday. "With the team I have around me, I had to try. They chased the break all day long," Van Aert said.

"Bruno Armirail was incredibly strong at the front, right up until the final kilometres. The other guys then did a fantastic job bringing me to the sprint," he said, referring to lead-out riders Per Strand Hagenes and Edoardo Affini. "I have to thank them and I'm really happy."

So is the sprinter back? "Honestly, the sprints have been going well all year, and that was also the case in the last few weeks in training. So I did have confidence in my chances. But this is a tough race with a lot of climbing and not many sprint teams, so every day it's a question mark whether we can control it."

"When fifteen teams smell an opportunity through a breakaway, you don't stand a chance," Van Aert explained with characteristic clarity. "But today we could gamble on the sprint from the start, and that gave me this chance. It's a nice boost. I'm happy with it — but I still have work to do," he concluded.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs