Wout van Aert clear about his plans for opening stages Giro: "I just hope it all works out"

"I'm heading into this Giro with question marks," Van Aert told the press gathered in Albania, where the Giro d’Italia is set to start. "Unfortunately, I got sick last week, so my preparation was far from ideal." Just how badly the illness affected him became clear when the 30-year-old was asked whether he had lost valuable training time. "After Amstel, I wasn’t able to do any real training. I kept having to adjust things. I had an infection that kept lingering, so to be honest, I’m going into this not really knowing where the legs are at."

Van Aert still feels the effects of his recent illness, leaving him uncertain heading into the Giro d’Italia. The original plan was to be sharp from the gun during the opening weekend, but now that’s no longer a given. “The chance of being good right away is much smaller,” he admitted. “I just hope my body responds well to the first stages. Of course we’ll give it a go on Friday, but we’ll see.”

That also means the odds of Van Aert riding into the first maglia rosa have dropped. “It’s more of a dream now than something realistic,” he said with honesty. “I’m taking it day by day and just hoping to have a great Giro. I still have plenty of ambition, but it’s a bit of a waiting game.”

He gave the press more details about his plans for stages one and two. "I've never been out of action for very long, so that's a small advantage, but I have lost some form. I must be realistic because I haven't fully recovered so close to the start. We're going to try it, but I'm not expecting much," said the Belgian, referring to the pink jersey.

"I'm actually looking forward to it. Last weekend, I was afraid I wouldn't make the start, and that would have been even more disappointing. I'll still be happy if I can start the race in good health. Even if things don't go so well in the first few days, there are still three long weeks in which I can improve," he explains.

"I don't really have any benchmarks," Van Aert told IDLProCycling.com. "We had hoped for more training, but that didn't work out. The logical choice is to get as much rest as possible so that I'm as fit as possible at the start, but that also means I don't really have a reference point."

"It's a bit of a gamble, but on the other hand, if I'm healthy at the start, the worst that can happen is that I won't be able to keep up in the first few days, but then I'll quickly pick up where I left off. I'm confident about that. The main thing is to see how my body reacts to the effort in the first stage."

"I'll just start with the ambition to stay in the race for as long as possible. You can't ride leisurely in a race, so I hope everything works well and isn't too bad. Keeping an open mind. I wouldn't call it a miracle, more of a question mark," he concludes his story about stage one.

On day two, there is another time trial on the program. "Normally, that's a goal. I've ridden one time trial this season, and it went really well," he says, referring to the Tour of the Algarve, where he finished second behind teammate Jonas Vingegaard. "I was ambitious, and I've been working hard on it over the past few weeks, but that illness has disrupted me a lot. First, let's see how day 1 goes, then I'll decide."

Is van Aert aiming for the points jersey in this Giro? "The conditions aren't really right for that. With Olav (Kooij, ed.) at the start, scoring points after a lead-out is always difficult. There are also a lot of points to be won in flat stages. So that was never really a goal." Van Aert also rules out the GC. "That was never the intention. We're here to win as many stages as possible, and Simon Yates is our GC man."