No more fear, all guts and glory for Van Aert in 2026 in search of classics win: 'Would mean the world to me'

Wout van Aert went through a kind of transition year in 2025. Call it a late puberty or a midlife crisis, but the 31-year-old Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike has learned a lot from a difficult yet beautiful season. Armed with those lessons, he wants to flip the switch for next year. Goodbye cautious WvA, welcome back daredevil Wout.

In recent weeks, Van Aert has been in the United States with his team, among other things to visit bike manufacturer Cervélo. While he was there, he spoke with The Athletic about the status of road cycling in the States. “Because we don’t have any big races in the US left on the schedule, you might think it was a sport that has been completely forgotten. But once you’re here, you feel that’s the complete opposite.” Van Aert says.

Other sports, like basketball, are much bigger in America. Those can be examples for cycling. "You can always learn from other sports. In general, how the NBA is as a federation, it’s completely different to what we have in cycling. The financial system they have, that is something we should try and learn from, even though it will be really hard to change that.”

Van Aert would love to see top-level racing return to American roads. “I hope at some point that we have a bigger American circuit,” says the Belgian, who does realise that the calendar is already packed. Even so, he sees an opportunity. "It’s a big market, and basically all the material sponsors we have, they have their headquarters or at least offices here. Cycling is something here, and it’s a big shame that we don’t use this platform to show off on the highest level."

Van Aert once again had to fight his way back from a major injury this season. After his heavy crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen last year, things went wrong again at the Vuelta a España. It was a horrible setback and it affected the Belgian well into the new season. Partly because of those crashes, he “only” won twice – even if both wins were very big ones.

“It was just too quick after the injury before," the Visma rider said of the fall in Spain. "I realized it was going to be exactly the same again. It was too much. I think every athlete gets used to being injured and coming back, but having these one after the other made me think about doing all this recovery again and then crashing out next year. Am I willing to do that over and over again?"

They were frightening thoughts – thoughts a young Wout van Aert would never have had. "It’s not even in the back of your mind. But then after a couple of injuries, you understand what it’s like. It’s normal that you carry this with you. Every injury gets more complicated, and it doesn’t help when you get a family and have children."

In the Tour de France, Visma | Lease a Bike once again came up short in the battle for overall victory. Tadej Pogacar was too strong for team leader Jonas Vingegaard for the second year running. Where the Killer Bees were frighteningly dominant not so long ago, the road back to a yellow jersey suddenly looks longer than ever. But Van Aert sees that the mindset inside the team has changed.

"A couple of years ago, the mindset was more related to the immediate results," the Belgian explained. “After winning the Tour de France twice, I think everybody realised that it was so special because of how we did it — Jonas in yellow, I was winning the green jersey. Of course, people were talking about the victory, but perhaps even more about how we rode as a team."

The victory on Montmartre in this year’s Tour will always be a special one for Van Aert, not least because he beat Pogacar there. "At points, on parallel sections, I was passing groups and they were shouting on their radio to support me. But every time the radio was open I just thought, f***, they are there, I couldn’t look back properly with the rain and motos behind me. It was only on the final straight that I could believe I was so far in front.”

The fact that he dropped the yellow jersey made the win even more special. "To drop Tadej was something exceptional. I was full effort, just trying to go fast to the finish. It was a super nice moment across the line, but it was only a few days later that I realised it had a big impact. Literally hundreds of people reached out over the next hours and days with the story of how they experienced it.”

He crossed the line out of the saddle, both hands raised. That was no coincidence, he now admits. “I had this salute in my head for a while. After I was injured, I had a goal. I just wanted to show that I’m still there, that I can be among the best riders. I wanted to show I’m still standing. And so I went up on the pedals as I went over the finish. That’s that. There.”

Van Aert now wants to show that again on the cobblestones in the spring. This year, he once more failed to land a really big one in the cobbled classics, but Paris–Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders are now his major targets. “I feel already that I’ve been chasing them my whole career,” he says. “But I’m still chasing them. They would be the cherry on the cake. They would mean the world to me."

A new mindset has to help him towards that longed-for second Monument. “At some point, with the injuries and the setbacks, I swapped more to the idea of taking it a bit more easy, to avoid risks or danger, to take an easier schedule, to change goals. But I hated the races when I wasn’t on my level. I realized that I was in cycling to be the best version of myself and to have no regrets afterwards.”