George Hincapie came up with a diagnosis for why Wout van Aert again finished second in the Elite Men’s Road Race championship: The Belgian was too tired.
Not buying that one.
Hincapie was discussing Van Aert on The Move podcast with Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel. According to Big George, there was a huge difference in preparation between Van Aert and his rival and eventual winner Mathieu van der Poel.
“The run-up of the two to the World Championship was completely different. Van Aert was the workhorse for Jumbo-Visma in the Tour de France; he had to give everything every day,” said Hincapie. “Van der Poel – perhaps a little ill – was actually training in the Tour, after which he started the World Cup in peak form. Because of that run-up, I don’t think it’s fair to say that Van der Poel is the better rider.”
Now, Hincapie knows a million more things about bike racing than I do. Probably several million. However, I don’t agree that Jumbo-Visma worn down Van Aert to an exhausted stub and in that process killed his chances of winning the rainbow jersey.
My argument against Hincapie’s assessment is none other than the man who finished right behind Van Aert in the World’s road race — Tadej Pogacar.
The Slovenia also “gave everything every day” in the Tour de France. By the second week of the Tour he looked sick and was visibly exhausted. He went super deep in the Alps trying to stay on Jonas Vingegaard’s wheel. In the most memorable quote of the Tour, he said “I’m fucked, I’m done” before losing something like seven minutes. He was fried, burnt, dead.
Despite that massive level of fatigue, Pogacar was in attack mode throughout the World’s road race and even out-sprinted Mads Pedersen for the bronze medal. If Pogacar had recovered, so had Wout. In fact, let’s remind ourselves he didn’t even ride the whole tour, leaving before stage 18 for the birth of his second child.
I don’t think Tour burn-out was a factor in Van Aert’s second place. Like all the other top favorites, he was simply up against a guy in absolute brilliant form. Wout felt he rode a tactically perfect race and there was nothing else to be done. Pogacar said the exact same thing about Van der Poel’s dominance.
No, if you insist on playing the exhaustion argument, then you’d have to look somewhere else. If he was tired, don’t blame it on Jumbo-Visma. We think it was more likely Jerome.
How about pinning Van Aert’s fatigue level on not getting enough sleep thanks to his newborn baby, little Jerome?
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