'I have to dare to aim high' - Wout van Aert takes aim at Omloop and the Classics after successful season debut

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since Visma-Lease a Bike teammates Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard last occupied the top two places in a time trial like they did at the Volta ao Algarve on Sunday, when Vingegaard roared home in first place to wrap up overall victory and Van Aert finished a very promising second.

Back in the 2022 Tour de France, Vingegaard was on the point of winning the race overall when in the 40.7 kilometre stage between Lacapelle Marival and Rocamadour, he opted to slow down and let Van Aert complete his lengthy wait in the hot seat by claiming the victory.

Fast forward nearly three years to the 2025 Tour of the Algarve and although Van Aert had been provisional best rider in the last day's TT for over an hour, Vingegaard nonetheless powered on into top place at the line with an advantage of 11 seconds over the Belgian.

However, the Dane's denial of Van Aert's first victory on 2025 had its logic. GC-wise, before the stage 5 finale, the double Tour de France champion was only narrowly ahead of Portugal's João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and every second counted in his quest to conquer the Algarve overall. 

Vingegaard finally completed the race only 15 seconds ahead of Almeida and 24 seconds up on Laurens De Plus (Ineos Grenadiers) overall.

Yet despite missing his first time trial win since the 2023 Belgian Nationals and indeed lacking a win at all in his first block of racing in 2025, which included the Clasica Jaén and the Algarve, Van Aert remained upbeat regarding his next big challenge at the Omloop on Saturday.

“All in all it was a good week,” Van Aert told VTM tv. “The race was tough, because there were several WorldTour teams at the start. Every day it was a fight to try and get a result and I also felt that I was getting better every time."

"Am I where I want to be?" he asked rhetorically. 

"That's hard to say, because every year is different. After the Opening Weekend I will have a much clearer picture.”

Van Aert said that the whole first week of road racing in Jáen and then in the Algarve, prior to heading to the big first target of Omloop had been very necessary to regain his confidence following the bad Vuelta a España crash. He injured his knee and was forced to abandon the Grand Tour just when he had won three stages and was leading both the points and the mountains rankings.

"This week has been ideal, and I hardly feel any discomfort from my knee," Van Aert said. "My right knee remains my weakest, even more than before, so we are all working on that in the team."

"It was also good to spend time regaining confidence at being in a peloton."

Suffering and the switch

While he explained the lack of a repeat stage win for himself as being partly due to Visma's different team goals in the Algarve, including the GC with Vingegaard, when it came to the time trial, Van Aert said first and foremost that "it was tough. The approach to the final climb was also very hilly and I never really had a good feeling during the time trial itself."

"I was suffering the whole time, but that's often how you ride the best time trials."

His successful decision to change over to a road bike for the Malhão climb itself after the first 17 kilometres of rolling Portuguese roads was not then imitated by Visma GC leader Vingegaard. Still, Van Aert felt it was the right thing to do in his own case while Vingegaard argued that such a switch would have involved his producing a lot of watts on a steep climb to regain momentum in a short but intense effort: something that a Classics rider like Van Aert can do all the time but it's not so straightforward for a Grand Tour rider.

"The road bike is lighter and I can stand on the pedals better uphill. I made up a lot of time after the second intermediate split," Van Aert explained. 

The data confirmed that, given the Belgian was fastest at the second split by just five seconds on Swedish National Champion Jakob Soderqvist (Lidl-Trek) and while the other fast riders on the flat then faded on the uphill, Van Aert went from strength to strength and ended second only to Vingegaard.

What made Van Aert's near-miss even more impressive was that his team did not think he was going to be in a position to fight for the stage.

"The last climb is very steep and that is why we think it will be too difficult for Wout to compete for the win," Arthur van Dongen, team manager at Visma-Lease a Bike had said beforehand.

As things turned out, Van Aert was not only fastest on the final part of the climb, he also managed to produce a fine effort to try to confirm his form for Opening Weekend and all but capture the win. 

This was arguably even more impressive given team sources told Nieuwsblad that Van Aert has barely been on his TT bike in recent weeks when training in Mallorca, doing up to seven-hour rides at a time, underlining the impression that time trials are currently not a priority for the Belgian.

"Time trials are not a neglected child for Wout, but for the time being the focus is on something else," Van Dongen had added.

"You are only as strong as your opponent allows you to be. Anything is possible, but young guys are coming up fast, who make time trialling a specific goal."

Going for the two Monuments

Amongst the generation who are treading hot on Van Aert's heels is Tadej Pogačar, of course, fresh off his win in the UAE Tour and who will be a big challenger in the Flanders Classics. 

Van Aert described himself as "wide-eyed", with admiration presumably after Pogačar's latest exploits in the Middle Eastern WorldTour race.

"He seems to continue where he left off in 2024 and that was of course to be expected. But I think the guys who can make it difficult for him [in stage racing] were not there in the UAE Tour," Van Aert told Sporza.

Pogačar and Van Aert will cross swords at the Tour of Flanders, of course, and the Flemish race remains a major goal despite Pogačar presence.

"It has been mentioned a lot this winter, it would be strange if I didn't set that as a goal," Van Aert argued.

"I would find it a bit silly if I said that I'm just going to try to win Dwars door Vlaanderen and Brabantse Pijl," continued Van Aert.

"With the track record that I have and the opportunities that I have, I have to dare to aim high. And that means going for the two Monuments."