For the second day running, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was one of the pre-race favourites for the Volta ao Algarve bunch sprint, but once again the Belgian star had to settle for seventh place in the finale.
Stage 3 to Tavira was the same finish where Van Aert won in 2024 with a last-minute blast to the line, and the even more markedly uphill finish in Faro on Saturday's stage 4 also looked to be 'made' for the Belgian to try for his first win of the season.
But after getting boxed in at Tavira, and despite Visma-Lease a Bike putting in a pronounced effort to pull back the break on the rugged run-in to Faro, Van Aert was once again out of the final picture.
Yet for all Van Aert recognised that winner and compatriot Milan Fretin (Cofidis) might have been on the limit when it came to his long sprint to the line, he played down any idea that he could have been affected by it. "I just wasn't strong enough," he told Nieuwsblad after the finish.
While Belgians Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and now Fretin have won four bunch sprints between the three of them in the last two days, Van Aert argued that he was no longer in their league when it came to pure speed.
For all he has been regular winner of bunch sprints in the very recent past, the latest being stage 3 of the Vuelta a España last year against Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Van Aert argued after his second straight Volta ao Algarve defeat that his strengths were increasingly lying elsewhere.
"I was in a good position, but I just wasn't strong enough. I'm no longer one of the fastest Belgians. For me, it has to be a bit tougher to tire out the other sprinters," Van Aert said.
"I felt really good today, but the race was less difficult than I expected. Our team took control of the race and we tried to hurt the sprinters on the hills. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish it off."
Van Aert added that in an uphill finish, given he twice lost his momentum when he found himself out of the picture it was much harder to regain speed given the gradient. Regarding Fretin, as he told Eurosport, "I'll have to look back at the images, but I could feel him passing at least."
He then repeated what he had already told the Belgian media, "I was in a good position in the last corner but with the lead-out swinging off, that opened up a gap and that created a long effort for me. I was just not strong enough in the sprint."
Given it's almost certain that Van Aert will not win in tomorrow's time trial - although he did win a time trial in the Tour de France, back in 2021 - the Belgian star will head to his first big Classics challenge, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, without a victory in his pocket.
The recent loss in their line-up next Saturday of Christophe Laporte due to illness already added one subplot in the discussions regarding what Visma-Lease A Bike are capable of achieving in the first WorldTour race of the European calendar, and Van Aert's lowkey beginning to 2025 now provides another.
If one Belgian fastman like Van Aert was rueing a second missed opportunity in the Algarve at Faro's finish line, just a few metres away his compatriot Milan Fretin (Cofidis), was busy celebrating his second victory in a week in 2025.
As Fretin's win in the GP Almeria last Sunday and now in the Volta ao Algarve confirms, Cofidis are undoubtedly on a roll compared to last season, the Belgian recognised to reporters afterwards.
"Last year was a difficult season, but we've been changing things around a bit with training, a bit harder than last year in the winter," he said. "That's been the biggest change."
Regarding his possible deviation in his line to the sprint - something the commissaires did not feel warranted any action, unlike with Alberto Dainese (Tudor) in stage 3 of the race, Fretin said he had spoken to Van Aert after the finish to check that he had no objections, either.
"In a sprint, if you feel you are in front of him [another rider], you automatically try to find the shortest way [to the finish]," he explained. "I tried to stay in the middle of the road and go full-on in my sprint."
