Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) suffered heartbreak at Dwars door Vlaanderen for the second year running, losing out to Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) in Waregem after making a tactical error in deciding to go all in for his sprint.
It had been the perfect day for the killer bees, with the whole team putting on an exhibition 71km from the line to get Van Aert, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson up to the remnants of the breakaway before the Berg Ten Houte climb. However, their perfection soon turned into misery.
With Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) leading a strong chase group behind, Van Aert made the call to go for the sprint, desperate to get a win after his struggles so far in the Classics and the tough 12 months he's endured since crashing heavily out of this very race.
With only Powless left to challenge, Van Aert launched out of the final corner but his legs cramped up and his head dropped, as Visma's plan went completely awry and the American rounded him. Van Aert could only blame himself.
"I'm just extremely disappointed. I feel responsible for this result and responsible for not finishing off the work of the team," said Van Aert bluntly post-race, with disappointment etched all over his face.
"In a front group of four with three guys on the team, you've always made a mistake if you do not win the race."
What went wrong? Van Aert did exactly what Visma's Head of Racing Grisha Niermann worried could be the Achilles Heel for the Dutch team heading into the Classics – he got greedy and wanted it too much.
"It's quite simple, I wanted this victory really bad. It was me making the decision quite early on that I wanted to sprint, and I just wanted Tiesj and Matteo to control the break early on and bring me to the line with Neilson," explained the Belgian.
"I was just too selfish and afraid I would come into a situation where I would not be able to go for the first place, and that's a big mistake.
"We should have played it as a team and increased the changes as a team and not only go for the sprint. I cramped completely, and Neilson turned out to be stronger."
Selfish is one of the last traits you would associate with Van Aert, as one of the best domestiques in modern cycling for the likes of Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France. He's also someone who has gifted Classics wins to his loyal teammates in the past; take Christophe Laporte at Gent-Wevelgem in 2023, for example.
Today saw a very un-Wout van Aert type of performance, and it came back to bite him and Visma-Lease a Bike. He'd claimed four hours before the disappointment that he had "nothing to prove", but clearly his words didn't match up with his intentions.
"I've been through a pretty rough year, I would say, and had a lot of criticism as well, and I feel like I needed this victory as an answer," said Van Aert.
"It was almost the perfect scenario coming to the line, and I was afraid to – it's silly to say – but, I was afraid to be behind a teammate who attacked, and that's just not good.
"It's not who I am, it's not my personality. It's a decision against my nature, I would say, and that's why I was so disappointed."
With Flanders now just four days away, Van Aert has suffered another blow, while two of his three main competitors, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Pedersen, have enjoyed respective wins at E3 and Gent-Wevelgem. Not to mention Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who arrived in Belgium on Tuesday and is set to start as the equal favourite with Van der Poel.
Van Aert admitted that he wouldn't be underestimating anyone in the way the team did Powless heading into the sprint, a valuable lesson heading into Sunday's Ronde, where he'll perhaps be hoping those mentioned above underestimate him.
"It's a big lesson that you never should underestimate someone else, and of course, I didn't expect to cramp in the sprint, which happened," said Van Aert.
"It was a super hard race in the final hour. We were just on our knees, all of us, and Neilson just had a bit more left. With a [better] tactic, we could maybe have outplayed him, or at least we would not have regrets. But now we have to, or at least I have to, be disappointed."
Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our 2025 Spring Classics coverage. Don't miss any of the breaking news, reports, and analysis from all the Cobbled Classics from Opening Weekend to Paris-Roubaix. Find out more
