Always well placed, never winning: Wout van Aert, the perilous quest for the 2nd Monument

Except that for the moment, this regularity does not pay since it always lacks that little something to win. Good legs at good times, opponents a little less dashing, facts of the race to his advantage, a little luck, perhaps.

So here he is stuck in a victory, and has been for more than three years now. And if, for ordinary mortals, a bouquet on a Monument would already be enormous, for the devouring appetite of from Aert, this is obviously too little. Especially since, at the same time, its two great rivals, Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacarobviously do not hesitate to steal the laurels from him, with a certain malice.

In 2020, when from Aert triumph over Sanremo, the prize lists of van der Poel and of Pogacar are always blank on the Monuments.

Today, they have three (2x Tour of Flanders and Milan Sanremo for van der Poel) and four (2x the Tour of Lombardy, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Flanders for Pogacar) respectively.

Proof of their rise in power, they have just won the two Monuments this year, but especially four of the last 6. Since Paris-Roubaix 2022, only Dylan Van Baarle and Remco Evenepoel indeed succeeded in interrupting the hegemony of the Dutch-Slovenian glutton tandem.

So brilliant on the Tour de France, where he compiled the victories (9) and the brilliant strokes, in particular on Mont Ventoux where his hallucinating stroke of panache had marked the minds of a lot of people, van Aert therefore remains in the shadow of his two rivals on the Monuments. We might also push the analysis to the world championships, where van Aert is often placed but never a winner (4th, 11th, 2nd out of his three participations).

From there to discourage him? It would be misunderstanding the man, who runs on trust. “I don’t intend to hide next week” he confided, on Sunday, at the finish of the Tour of Flanders. We have not forgotten him. His rivals probably have not either. Van Aert will come out of its box, chronicle of an announced attack. To finally defeat the Indian sign?