Cycling
A Cyclo-cross champion, Netflix star and Tour de France stalwart, Wout van Aert is not only one of the most versatile cyclists in the world, but a rare athlete who puts family above all.
Summary
- 1He hails from a hotbed of cycling
- 2Van Aert was a protégée
- 3His versatility is unparalleled
- 4Mastering his mind helped turn him into a world beater
- 5But his family is his greatest strength
- 6He's up to nine stage wins in the Tour de France
- 7Winning the green points classification jersey at the Tour de France in …
- 8Wearing the yellow jersey gave him wings
- 9He's taken some hard spills
- 10There are no limits to his ability
Wout van Aert is a a giant of a cyclist, both figuratively and literally. At 1.91m (6ft 3in) he’s well above the average cyclist height of 1.75m, and with nine Tour de France stage wins, his list of honours is a bit more stacked, too.
At the age of 29, the Belgian Jumbo-Visma team rider has had a busy few years.
As well as reigning supreme at the Tour of Britain and scoring podium places at the UCI Road World Championships, the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup and the iconic Paris-Roubaix event in 2023, he also starred in the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained, suffered a nasty crash and welcomed his second child. And in 2024, van Aert won a bronze medal in road cycling at the Paris Games.
This is his story.
The biggest thing is that I never limited myself
01
He hails from a hotbed of cycling
Van Aert was born in 1994 in Herentals, an area that spawned one of Belgian cycling’s most famous sons in Rik van Looy – winner of all five of the sport’s one-day classics, two world titles and the Tour de France’s points classification. No pressure then.
With a background in the Herentals, van Aert was always likely to become a serious cyclist. It helps that Jose van Aert a Dutch rider who rode in the professional peloton from 1988 to 1994 and made appearances at the Tour and Giro d’Italia is a cousin on his father’s side.
However, van Aert senior never quite achieved the heady heights of the younger van Aert and the pair only got in touch once van Aert was already a keen rider. Today, van Aert senior still attends the junior’s races whenever he can.
02
Van Aert was a protégée
Family ties aside, van Aert was more than capable of making it on his own. During the 2011-12 season he won the junior race at the Cyclo-cross Ruddervoorde in his native Belgium before going on to finish second in the Belgian and World Junior Championships.
The next year he won the Under-23 Cyclo-cross Superprestige, and bagged second place in the Under-23 World Cup.
He became Belgian champion for the first time in January 2016 before going on to complete a grand slam by winning the World Cup and securing a world championship that same season. In January 2018, he became Belgian champion for the third time and finished second in the Cyclo-cross World Championships in 2019.
03
His versatility is unparalleled
While van Aert is an accomplished Cyclo-cross rider, he isn't afraid of a bit of tarmac either. He's already taken part in several road races and beat Tony Martin, the multiple world champion, in a time trial during the prologue of the Tour of Belgium.
He’s also one of the leading time trialists in pro cycling, and can match the sprinters when it comes to a mass finish. Plus, he’s no slouch when it comes to the attacking the peloton in the classics, having won such prestigious races as Milan-San Remo, Amstel Gold Race, E3 and Gent-Wevelgem.
Mountains don’t present a problem for van Aert. He’s often used as a domestique in major stage races, riding for the benefit of their team and leader, rather than trying to win the race. In the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Tour de France, he was there to help his team leaders up the lower slopes of the big mountain stages. It speaks volumes that each year that van Aert has ridden the Tour, a team-mate has finished the race on the podium.
As if that wasn’t enough, he also won solo on the iconic Mont Ventoux mountain stage of the 2020 Tour after launching an attack 11km from the summit of the climb.
04
Mastering his mind helped turn him into a world beater
Van Aert came up through the ranks with Mathieu van der Poel, who, unfortunately, frequently got the better of him. Determined to improve, van Aert sought out the mental coach Rudy Heylen.
“He helped me turn things round,” van Aert has said of his time with the psychologist and guru.
It worked, too: he won his first national title and then the world crown within a few months of working with Heylen.
05
But his family is his greatest strength
For many athletes, family can seem a bit like an afterthought. Not so for van Aert, who married Sarah de Bie in 2018 and welcomed his first child, Georges in 2021.
A proud father who regularly posts about family life, van Aert further demonstrated his commitment to his growing brood when he actually withdrew from the 2023 Tour de France before stage 18 to return home for the birth of his and Sarah’s second child, Jerome.
“Luckily he has mommy’s eyes,” he later wrote.
06
He's up to nine stage wins in the Tour de France
Van Aert has more than 25 major wins on the road, but everyone knows that in cycling, the Tour is what everyone secretly obsesses over.
Van Aerts first Tour de France win came with his debut in 2019 on Stage 10 when he out-muscled several of the more known sprinters for the win.
Having dropped out of 2023’s competition on family matters, his most recent win came in the individual time trial on Stage 20 of the Tour in 2022.
Though not normally a general classification rider, the Belgian has overall stage race wins at the Tour of Britain (2021) and Danmark Rundt - Tour of Denmark (2018) in his palmares.
With a bright future ahead of him, so far van Aert’s Tour titles are as follows:
- Points classification (2022)
- 9 individual stages (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)
- 1 TTT stage (2019)
- Combativity award (2022)
And counting.
07
Winning the green points classification jersey at the Tour de France in 2022 was a major achievement
Van Aert set the objective of winning the points classification competition at the 2022 Tour, and he pulled it off in dominant style. Van Aert clocked up 480 points in total along the way, 194 points more than Jasper Philipsen, the second-placed rider on the classification. Speaking after his win in the time trial on stage 20 all but confirmed his green jersey win, van Aert said: "I thank all my team-mates and the whole team for those special three weeks, it’s unbelievable."
08
Wearing the yellow jersey gave him wings
But nothing compares to donning the iconic yellow jersey as the general classification leader.
Van Aert had this honour for five days at the 2022 edition of the Tour de France. He says that the jersey “gave him wings” in the early part of the Tour and when he won Stage 4 he gave the cameras a special celebration – flapping his arms like a bird on the finish line.
Fittingly, van Aert ranks the win as one of his most memorable. "It’s not really common that the yellow jersey can attack and then win the stage solo.”
09
He's taken some hard spills
For all of its ritual and class, road cycling is a deceptively brutal sport. And you don’t spend over a decade at the top with taking your share of the lumps.
Riding in the individual time trial on stage 13 of the 2019 Tour de France, van Aert suffered a nasty crash that ended his race. In an interview months later, he admitted it turned into a career-threatening injury after an error during an operation where the surgeons missed a torn tendon. Thankfully, he defied medical expectations and was back in action by the end of the year.
More recently, the 29-year-old suffered a broken collarbone, sternum, bruised lung and a number of cracked ribs after a high-speed spill at Dwars door Vlaanderen in March 2024.
The high-speed pile-up on the eve of Flanders also robbed van Aert of his season centrepieces, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Thankfully, he was recovering well.
Wout van Aert’s return: From severe injury to Tour de France force
“9 days post surgery and I start to feel a little bit like myself again 🙏🏼 I hope to be back on my bike soon but at this moment a full recovery of my wounds and broken bones has my absolute priority. I am grateful for the extra time I get to spend with my loved ones,” he wrote on Instagram in April.
Back then, it was uncertain if Wout van Aert would recover and get in shape in time for the Tour de France 2024. However, in a remarkable display of resilience, he not only recovered in time but also stepped up as a cornerstone for Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Van Aert proved why his name is synonymous with grit and determination – and why he is considered one of the most formidable cyclists of our time.
From the outset, van Aert made his presence felt. Despite the physical and mental toll of his recent injury, he exhibited the tenacity and strategic acumen that have become his trademarks. "Because of you, I made it to the start of the #TDF2024," the father of two wrote on Instagram, thanking his wife and two children. Van Aert is not only an exceptional rider; he is also a family person - and likes to downplay his heroics.
10
There are no limits to his ability
All in all, van Aert puts such a successful career down to a resounding [and highly admirable] work ethic. "The biggest thing is that I never limited myself – I've never thought that's impossible," he says, reflecting on his breakthroughs at the Tour de France. "I was just always open-minded, always wanting to give it a go. A lot of people don’t try it because they think they can’t."
Van Aert races with class, heart and panache but, while there are still many more races to win, it's how a given races pan out and the way he achieves his victories that brings him the most pleasure. "I really like challenges and it’s an even better feeling when you achieve something that everybody thinks is impossible,” he says. “I want to be known as someone who tried to do special things.”
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