The Belgian Wout Van Aert abandoned the race Through Flanders in tears, after a very violent fall in the company of several other favorites, four days before the Tour of Flanders. The leader of the Visma-Lease bike team crashed 67 km from the finish in a right turn made at full speed. He struggled to his feet, screaming in pain and disappointment, his shirt torn and his back completely torn, before being evacuated by ambulance to be taken to hospital.
Also involved in the same fall were his compatriot Jasper Stuyven and the Eritrean Biniam Girmay, according to their respective teams, Lidl-Trek and Intermarché. The Dane Mads Pedersen, winner of the Ghent-Wevelgem on Sunday, also fell but was able to get back on track. All of these riders were in a small pack of favorites chasing the breakaway.
This incident could seriously compromise Van Aert’s participation in the Tour of Flanders on Sunday and Paris-Roubaix on April 7. The 29-year-old flamenco had made these two cobblestone monuments, which are still missing from his record, the main objective of his season.
He focused his entire start to the year around these two classics, skipping several races, including Milan-San Remo, to prepare at altitude in Tenerife, during a three-week course. Last Friday he had already fallen, although less intensely, during the E3 Grand Prix won by his great rival Mathieu van der Poel.
The Dutchman did not participate in the Across Flanders on Wednesday to preserve himself for the “Ronde” on Sunday, for which he becomes more than ever the favorite. For Van Aert, the curse seems to continue on the flamenco classics that he was promised at the beginning of his career, but in which he accumulates strokes of bad luck, such as his puncture in the last Paris-Roubaix at a crucial moment in the race. .
