Hofstetter explains raw emotions after finishing second to Van Aert: “You can beat Wout”

Wout van Aert has since left the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but less than 24 hours earlier, the Belgian had taken victory in the sprint. Behind the Visma | Lease a Bike star, Hugo Hofstetter finished second, and the French sprinter’s emotions were clearly visible after the finish. One day later, the NSN rider explained those telling emotions to IDL ProCycling.

To understand those emotions, we first have to go back to March, when Hofstetter spoke to this site ahead of the Ronde van Brugge. The Frenchman’s last victory dates back to 2022, so at the time we asked him how close he felt he was to winning again. “If I’m honest, it is still quite far away,” he said then.

Even so, the Frenchman remained combative. “Still, I always want to win. That is never easy.” The high level of the sprinting field also came up in that conversation. “Unfortunately, it is always difficult to win, and the level keeps getting higher and higher. That makes everything a lot harder. In so many races, it is always the same guys who win. That leaves very little room for the rest.”

A few months later, in the “new Dauphiné,” a major opportunity suddenly appeared for Hofstetter. The top sprinters had largely skipped the French stage race, mainly because of the tough route. That meant the NSN Frenchman was one of the few pure sprinters on the start list, and with a flat finale — and relatively little climbing — on day five, Hofstetter was always going to be one of the contenders.

Yet it was Van Aert who managed to win, despite the pain in his elbow — the same issue that would lead him to leave the race one day later. Hofstetter crossed the line at the bird park in Villars-les-Dombes just over a meter behind him. Once he came to a stop, the Frenchman’s emotions were plain to see. So close again. No victory again.

That is why IDL ProCycling spoke to Hofstetter on Friday morning, before the start of stage six. We put his words from Bruges back to him, and he remembered that day well. “I was there in the final then too. But just like always at the start of this year, something happened to me again. Every time I was eleventh, twelfth, fifteenth, fourteenth. Then there was another crash or a mechanical problem. Those are quite a few UCI points you don’t score.”

Hofstetter knows what that does to a rider. “Those are difficult moments. Mentally and physically, you start asking yourself questions. But then you simply get back to work and try to do the maximum. A day like yesterday rewards all that work.” After the visible disappointment, there was also pride in that second place.

“That was already the case yesterday,” Hofstetter told us on Friday morning. “The disappointment is really in the moment itself, because you come so close. And you can beat Wout. A chance like that perhaps does not present itself when he is at 100 percent. But Wout himself was perhaps not at 100 percent either, so that was another opportunity,” the Frenchman realised all too well.

His mistake? “That I did not invest enough to really hold his wheel. I’m not saying I would have won, but I would rather have lost by two centimeters than by one meter.” Now, without a victory in the bag, a tough final weekend awaits. “Now it becomes difficult. In terms of results, there will be no more personal goals for me. As a team, we will go for the green jersey.”

And Hofstetter himself? “For me, I will stack up the efforts so that I am ready for the French championships and perhaps the Tour de France.” Perhaps there, he will get another chance to beat Van Aert in a sprint.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]