Wout van Aert forced to leave Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes one day after sprint victory due to injury

Wout van Aert won Thursday’s fifth stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, showing an impressive turn of speed in the sprint. But just one day later, the Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike has had to say goodbye to the race: he will not start stage six. The reason is a crash he suffered before the race had even begun.

Van Aert crashed last Monday during a training ride on his time trial bike. He arrived at the start of the French stage race with his elbow heavily bandaged, and it meant he did not look fully comfortable on the bike during the opening stages. In the team time trial, where he would normally have been expected to serve as one of Visma | Lease a Bike’s big engines, he was dropped early.

Even so, Visma | Lease a Bike urged calm at the time. “Of course, it’s not as if him being dropped here means he can’t do anything anymore,” trainer Mathieu Heijboer said after the team time trial. “We’ll look at it day by day and see where there are opportunities for Wout. We’re using this race, and the recovery afterwards, to take another step. He will definitely keep improving.”

And improve he certainly did. In the fourth stage, the Dutch formation moved to the front of the bunch, although the breakaway could not quite be brought back. Behind them, however, it was Van Aert who won the peloton sprint. That was already an excellent sign, and an even better one followed in stage five. This time, the peloton did sprint for the stage victory — and Van Aert was clearly the strongest.

One day later, Visma | Lease a Bike delivered the unpleasant confirmation: Van Aert would not start stage six. “Wout van Aert will not appear at the start of stage 6 of Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes today. He is still experiencing significant discomfort in his elbow related to the crash he sustained last week. Wout will travel back to Belgium for further medical…” the team wrote in its update on X.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]