Wout van Aert shares injury update: "Serious damage to knee joint has also been identified"

"Considering the circumstances, I am pretty good," Van Aert said when asked about his current condition. "That crash was one with serious impact, and I was in the hospital for a while. Last week was not easy, during which I couldn't move my knee and had to lie in the chair a lot. After a few days, I became more mobile and could walk again. I had a deep wound in my knee."

"That had to be stitched, and the knee is inconvenient. To let that heal properly, I was not allowed to start my leg for a long time. Furthermore, during additional examinations in Belgium, we found that there was also severe damage to the knee joint. A dent, as it were, on the side. That explained all the pain I had and why it was so difficult to support. But fortunately, it's an injury that will hold me back once I get on the bike again."

"Unfortunately, I have no concrete plans yet when I will be back on the bike," the Belgian continued. "First, I want to pick up normal life, and then I can think about cycling again. There is no time pressure because the season is already over for me. I'm already thinking about next year, but it's too early to discuss it practically. The future will tell when I can return to competition, but if I remember one thing from the Vuelta, I was completely back and had found my legs again. This injury shouldn't stop me from returning at full strength."

Yet there was also good news to share on Wednesday, as Van Aert committed his future as a cyclist to his current team. "I signed a new contract with my team Visma | Lease a Bike. A unique contract of indefinite duration. I will stay with this team throughout my career and am very happy about that. I didn't develop it myself; we came up with it together. I just turned thirty, and then, as a cyclist, you start thinking a bit further. The end of my career started looming somewhere, without me knowing or being aware of when that would be."

There was interest from other teams, of course. "Since I've been here on the team, I've felt at home, and I've been able to do my best performance but also be me. There was no question if I would ever want to change, and it was the same for the team. That's very nice."

So what's left? Forget 2024 quickly? "Despite those crashes, I still managed to achieve great things. I'm very proud that I returned after my fall and got another Olympic medal in this unlucky season." The goals he already had remain intact. "The Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are two races I want to win, so I want to be at my best again next year. Also, the other one-day races I haven't won will get more attention."