Patrick Lefevere sees Van Aert winning the Tour of Roubaix: “Even against Pogacar or Van der Poel”
Wout van Aert has come close to victory in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix before, but the Belgian often ran into Mathieu van der Poel or Tadej Pogacar in these dream races. At 31 years old, time is starting to run out, but Patrick Lefevere certainly still sees it happening in the near future.
The former team manager of Soudal Quick-Step is optimistic in a podcast by the French-language newspaper La Dernière Heure about the chances of his younger compatriot in the Tour of Flanders and Roubaix. "I still think he can win these races."
"Even with Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel at the start. Wout has already managed to drop Pogacar on the climb to Montmartre (in the final stage of last year's Tour de France, ed.), a few years after he had beaten him in the mountains. Physically, Wout is really strong and mentally he is absolutely a monster."
Van Aert is currently preparing for a new classics campaign, although his build-up to the spring races is definitely not going smoothly. It has been a month since he suffered a small fracture in his ankle. The Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike said last week that he is doing well, but he is still dealing with his injury.
Van Aert was a guest on the Live Slow Ride Fast podcast by Laurens ten Dam and Stefan Bolt. He indicated that the swelling in his ankle had decreased. "Walking is almost normal and on the bike I can already accelerate a bit after the corners. I’m becoming more and more a normal person again, but I am still working on it. [...] It’s really the last degrees of movement in the ankle that are still painful. And I can’t sprint at full power yet."
