Wout van Aert visited the United States during his off-season. He would like to see cycling gain more prominence there. According to the Belgian, the country has a lot to offer the sport.
“I hope that at some point we get a bigger American race calendar,” said Van Aert, who also visited the offices of bike brand Cervélo, in an interview with The Athletic. “It’s a huge market. And nearly all the equipment sponsors we have have their headquarters or at least an office here.”
“Cycling is really a thing here, and it’s a real shame that we don’t use this platform at the highest level to showcase what we can do,” continued the 31-year-old rider from Visma | Lease a Bike. “Logistics I actually don’t consider an excuse for not organizing anything, since teams are used to racing abroad. The biggest issue is that the calendar is already so packed that I can’t point to a perfect spot where it would fit. But that is always difficult.”
American brands
Van Aert believes that major brands – especially from the United States – could make the sport financially more stable. “A team like Red Bull, which invests in cycling with such a large brand, is what I would like to see in the future. That this kind of sponsor starts investing in our sport. Of course, I believe that we have everything it takes to be valuable to these brands.
“It would be really good to have more American brands. They have more money to invest in our sport. I hope that in the coming months we don’t hear any more stories about teams struggling financially, like we have seen in recent months,” he refers to, among others, the merger between Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty, and the departure of Deceuninck as the second title sponsor of Alpecin-Deceuninck.
