Wout van Aert back in the saddle for the first time since his Tour-ending elbow injury

Wout van Aert suffered a real setback in the build-up to the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, which he ultimately had to abandon. An elbow infection meant the Visma | Lease a Bike rider would miss the Tour de France. A huge disappointment — but the 31-year-old from Herentals has at least been able to clock up some kilometres again.

Van Aert crashed on the Monday before the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes during a training session on his time trial bike. He came to the start of the French stage race with a strapped-up elbow, and muddled through the opening days. He was dropped on the first two stages, and then couldn't be of much value to Visma | Lease a Bike in the team time trial.

A day later, he showed plenty of improvement in stage four with a fine sprint, and he put those sprinting legs to perfect use a day after that. Van Aert won the fifth stage with verve. It all seemed to be okay again, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The Belgian reported being in more pain than before, and a poor night's sleep did him no favours. He was therefore forced to leave the race before the start of stage six.

He travelled back to Belgium to have his red, swollen elbow examined. There it became clear that the wound had become infected. For a moment it was even very serious, but in the end worse was avoided. What was certain, though, was that Van Aert would not be taking part in the Tour de France — an enormous blow for Visma | Lease a Bike, and a setback for the rider himself.

He had gone quiet for a week, but on Sunday a post from Van Aert appeared on Instagram. He could be seen back on the bike! In his story, we saw him setting off with a small peloton at the start of the Olivia Classic.

The Olivia Classic is a charity ride in Van Aert's hometown of Herentals. The event is run by the Olivia Fund, a charity dedicated to the fight against childhood cancer. For Van Aert, the ride was a nice chance to support the cause, but also to test the elbow again. "First attempt to hold my bars again," he wrote on Strava.