Wout van Aert was 'very disappointed' after gravel stage: "Made a few wrong choices"

He was really aiming for the stage win in Tirreno-Adriatico on Tuesday, but Wout van Aert found himself too far back when entering the crucial gravel section. Afterwards, a frustrated Van Aert did not speak to the media, but one day later he gave an interview to VTM.

Van Aert rode an attentive race on Tuesday, but at the decisive moment he was nowhere to be seen. “I was very disappointed. I was totally out of position at the most important point of the race,” the Belgian said before the start of the third stage in an interview with VTM/Het Laatste Nieuws. “Because of that, I couldn’t deliver a result.”

“The legs were good though, because I was able to move up on the gravel and met Matteo (Jorgenson, ed.) there. The only thing left to do was to try and limit the damage to the other GC contenders. In that sense, it worked out well, but we would have preferred to fight for the stage win with two.”

Wrong choices
But what exactly went wrong leading up to the gravel passage? “I just lost Matteo’s wheel before that. The descent got a bit tricky and I lost some places. After that, I made a few wrong moves trying to move up. Before we knew it, we were at that corner, and I was in a lost position.”

The Visma | Lease a Bike rider will likely get a chance for sporting revenge today, but he’s not fooling himself too much. “There will be better opportunities in the coming days. And I have to be realistic. Guys like Philipsen, I’m not going to beat on such a finish. It will be a long day. But that’s good too. The classics are coming up. Extra hours in the saddle, that’s what we’re here for.”