Why does Wout van Aert’s rumored plan of racing the Giro and never the Tour make no sense? Spencer Marin breaks down why it will be silly for Wout van Aert to race the 2024 Giro d’Italia and miss out the Tour de France in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.
– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton e-newsletter. Enroll right here for full entry. –
No Tour’23 for Wout?
A current report within the Italian sports activities each day newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, has claimed that Jumbo-Visma (quickly to be Visma-Lease a Bike) plans to ship Wout van Aert to the Giro d’Italia in 2024 as their GC chief in addition to skipping the Tour de France to give attention to preparation for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.
Ought to We Consider This?
Contemplating simply what number of items of great biking information have dropped just lately through single-sourced tales that haven’t panned out in actuality, it will be sensible to view this with a wholesome diploma of skepticism, particularly since even simply the concept Van Aert may present helps the Giro court docket sponsors and enhance their TV rights worth, and the proprietor of La Gazzetta, RCS MediaGroup runs the Giro.
With this in thoughts, it is very important do not forget that this information may be traced again to a single La Gazzetta piece, the crew has formally launched nothing, and concrete plans for the approaching season probably gained’t be in place till after the crew’s mid-December coaching camp/sponsor reveal.
Why Would Wout van Aert Do This?
Taking an enormous look and assuming that is true, that is undoubtedly a daring and thrilling transfer that will ship a much-needed star enhance for the Italian grand tour, and permit members of the ‘Wout van Aert is definitely a GC rider’ secret society to see our thought experiment play out in actual life. And, even when he fails in his GC bid, it is going to present us simply what number of phases he can win at a grand tour if he isn’t on domestique obligation for a GC chief.
There’s undoubtedly a wholesome debate available on whether or not the 2024 Giro’s comparatively gentle course and enormous variety of particular person time trials (68 kilometers) would enable the hulking Van Aert to compete for general victory.
- I personally imagine that he may, however provided that he was prepared to lose a big quantity of weight, which might all however finish his one-day Classics and stage-hunting profession (see: Geraint Thomas) and, mockingly, harm his potential to win each the Street Race and Time Trial on the Olympics later within the season.
However, past the GC classification, I imagine that if Van Aert did go to the 2024 Giro d’Italia, it will probably be much less about chasing a GC end result and extra about freely chasing stage victories with out the burden of appearing as a domestique for a GC chief, with an added good thing about skipping the Tour de France to move off to devoted altitude camps in June and July to arrange particularly for the Street Race and Time Trial occasions on the Paris Olympic Video games in early August.
All of it doesn’t make sense
Why This Doesn’t Make Sense
As a substitute of debating if Van Aert can go to the Giro and severely problem for the general win, I believe it’s extra attention-grabbing to dive into whether or not or not he ought to and, most significantly, if his rumored plan of concentrating on the cobbled Classics (Tour of Flanders & Paris-Roubaix), racing the Giro and skipping the Tour de France to arrange for the Olympics makes any sense.
Whereas racing the Giro d’Italia earlier than decamping to a solitary high-altitude coaching camp to arrange for the time trial and street race on the Paris Olympics would possibly, theoretically, make sense at first look, upon nearer inspection, the plan begins to disintegrate.
Setting apart why a famous person rider would chuck apart the game’s largest race, the Tour de France, to give attention to the Olympics, which, if we’re trustworthy, is a considerably gimmicky one-off national-team race that doesn’t carry the identical heft as biking’s Monuments, the logistics of this plan depart one thing to be desired.
-
- The primary difficulty that arises is how Van Aert would transition from Paris-Roubaix, which requires contenders to be at their heaviest attainable racing weight, on April seventh, to the startline of the Giro lower than a month in a while Might 4th in situation to problem for the general title on the grand tour.
- This impediment alone renders any thought of a Cobbled-Classics/Giro GC double out of the query.
- The subsequent difficulty is current historical past, which strongly means that racing the Tour de France, which normally ends between one or two weeks prior, is the important thing to profitable Olympic titles in each the street race and time trial.
- The primary difficulty that arises is how Van Aert would transition from Paris-Roubaix, which requires contenders to be at their heaviest attainable racing weight, on April seventh, to the startline of the Giro lower than a month in a while Might 4th in situation to problem for the general title on the grand tour.
Olympic Street Race/TT Champions & Tour de France Participation Since 2008:
-
- Olympic Street Race Winners:
2021: Richard Carapaz – raced 21 days on the Tour
2016: Greg van Avermaet – raced 21 days on the Tour
2012: Alexandre Vinokourov – raced 21 days on the Tour
2008: Samuel Sánchez – raced 21 days on the Tour - Olympic Time Trial Winners:
2021: Primož Roglič – raced 8 days on the Tour
2016: Fabian Cancellara – raced 17 days on the Tour
2012: Bradley Wiggins – raced 21 days on the Tour
2008: Fabian Cancellara – raced 17 days on the Tour
- Olympic Street Race Winners:
- As we will see above, each Olympic champion within the street race and time trial, Van Aert’s focused occasions, began the Tour de France. Each street race champion completed the Tour, whereas three out of the 4 began, however didn’t end, the Tour.
- The truth is, on the 2021 (2020) Olympic Street Race in Tokyo, the highest non-Tour racing finishers had been Adam Yates in ninth place and Alberto Bettiol in eleventh, who hit a wall late within the race and was dropped from the lead group, probably as a result of lack of constant racing miles within the month prior.
- Even together with his Jumbo-Visma crew’s class-leading sports activities science division, coaching camp logistics, and backend workers, it nonetheless looks like a stretch, and albeit silly, to assume he may overcome this considerably overwhelming proof.
- With this in thoughts, don’t be shocked to see these reviews fall by the wayside when Jumbo-Visma and Van Aert launch his 2024 racing schedule following the crew’s December planning camp.
- The truth is, on the 2021 (2020) Olympic Street Race in Tokyo, the highest non-Tour racing finishers had been Adam Yates in ninth place and Alberto Bettiol in eleventh, who hit a wall late within the race and was dropped from the lead group, probably as a result of lack of constant racing miles within the month prior.
Van Aert aiming for the Olympics
– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton e-newsletter. Enroll right here for full entry. –
Like PEZ? Why not subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter to obtain updates and reminders on what’s cool in street biking?
