Back then, the leadership hierarchy dictated that Van Aert would cross the line first. This time, the Belgian was content to yield victory to his teammate, but that was a mere detail. The chilling effect on the rest of the peloton was exactly the same here when they cruised away on the second ascent of the Kemmelberg with some 55km still to race.
The gradient grazes 16% on the cobbles of the Kemmelberg, but Van Aert and Laporte betrayed few signs of duress as they pressed inexorably clear. The men behind them, by contrast, rode as though they were trying to clamber their way up the down escalator. By the summit, the Jumbo-Visma duo already had ten seconds in hand, and the gap yawned out thereafter.
Van Aert performed the bulk of the pace-making, stretching their lead beyond a minute by the time they circled around for the final haul up the Kemmelberg with 35km. Even without the driving rain and low cloud that obscured the plat pays along the Franco-Belgian border on Sunday afternoon, the chasers would have struggled to catch a glimpse of Van Aert and Laporte for the final hour of racing. By the time they rolled across the line in Wevelgem, their lead was just shy of two minutes.
“It’s just an incredible way to finish off a great classic like Gent-Wevelgem,” Van Aert said when he arrived in the mixed zone afterwards, wrapped carefully against the cold. “Riding together to the finish line is just incredible, and it’s almost hard to believe that we did it again.”
There have been striking collective flexes at the Classics in previous generations, of course, but Jumbo-Visma somehow appear to conjure up exhibitions like this as a matter of routine. As well as their crushing E3 display last year, after all, Van Aert and Laporte had also joined Primož Roglič in a similar three-up effort at Paris-Nice.
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“It’s an incredible Classics season so far for us as a team,” said Van Aert. “It’s really great how we ride this season and how we do every race together again. Of course, it’s been a really special weekend with the victory on Friday, a victory that I’ll really cherish, and it was really special to win again here, let’s say. Today was an exceptional team performance.”
Van Aert was very clearly the stronger of the Jumbo-Visma duo here, a point starkly illustrated when he pulled away from Laporte on the final time up the Kemmelberg before waiting for the Frenchman at the summit. As they began to congratulate one another in the final kilometre, however, it soon became apparent that Van Aert had elected to yield victory to his teammate.
“People at home only see this race, but Christophe is a good friend. We have been on the road together for a whole year, away at training camps together, and when you get into this situation, it would feel strange to sprint against one another,” Van Aert said by way of explanation.
“For me, it’s very important to realise that it's not possible to do it all alone. And a day like today maybe gives me even more pleasure than winning myself.”
Although Van Aert had scored victory himself in Harelbeke on Friday, he betrayed signs of weakness on the Kwaremont when he was briefly dropped by his breakaway companions Pogacar and Van der Poel, neither of whom lined out at Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday. Van Aert gently dismissed the idea that Jumbo-Visma’s show of force here had been an attempt at delivering a message to those absent competitors ahead of the Tour of Flanders.
“It was just the best tactic to try to win the race today with the team,” Van Aert said. “Along with Christophe and Nathan [Van Hooydonck], we decided to be aggressive, because we still had the card of Olav [Kooij] to play, so it was the best tactic.
“I am already going to the Tour of Flanders in good shape, although nothing has really changed since Friday. I did receive confirmation of my level of form, but the two guys who hurt me on Friday weren’t here today, so nothing has changed in that respect.”
Perhaps, but Van Aert knows, too, that the strength of his Jumbo-Visma guard poses a problem to trouble even the loftiest Ronde rivals.
Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
