Bakelants on friend Van Aert: “We must not create fear by repeating the same thing”

Jan Bakelants, a close friend of Van Aert, gave his take on the situation on Wielerclub Wattage. “Good, but not good enough. That’s the conclusion so far, and he won’t blame me for saying that. He will also have hoped to be a bit further along by now. But because of the circumstances, including that illness, this is the form he has to work with,” Bakelants said.

“We saw that as well in the stage that finished in San Gimignano. The plan was to be there fighting for the win, but at no point did that really look possible,” the former rider, now commentator and analyst, added. The Dutch source article frames Bakelants’ verdict in exactly those terms after Van Aert’s muted showing in the race-defining gravel section.

“I was very disappointed, honestly,” Van Aert said himself on Wednesday morning after the stage. “I was completely out of position at the most important point of the race. Because of that, I couldn’t fight for a result. My legs were actually good, because I was moving up well on the gravel. But you had to start that sector near the front if you wanted to be in the mix. That was frustrating.”

Analyst Dirk De Wolf felt Van Aert looked hesitant in that key phase. “He grabbed the brakes there. He was on Jorgenson’s wheel, but there was a crash behind him and he braked, so he entered the section around fiftieth position. If he follows Jorgenson into that sector, I think he rides a very good result.”

Van Aert himself was clear about what went wrong. “I lost Matteo Jorgenson’s wheel and then made a few wrong choices. Before I knew it, I was in a bad position.” The Belgian did manage to fight his way back to the front afterwards to help his team leader. “Now he sacrificed himself, because that’s what Wout does straight away. He comes back and helps bring them to within 20 or 30 seconds. I think he let himself get pushed back out of fear,” De Wolf concluded.

Bakelants pushed back against that final conclusion from his fellow analyst. “I don’t think there is a real problem. We must not start creating that fear either by repeating the same thing over and over again. Because if you get asked a thousand times whether you’re afraid, in the end you do start to feel fear. I can assure you of that.”

“I expect a lot from him after Tirreno. I think Wout will, for the first time in his career, really take a step forward after Tirreno, which could allow him to hit top form at exactly the right moment,” Bakelants said. On that point, he found support from Tom Boonen. “I agree with Jan. Because of that crash in cyclo-cross, he may for the first time in years begin the spring fresh.”