{"id":104864,"date":"2025-08-29T18:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/104864\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T18:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:27:10","slug":"van-aert-pulls-out-of-plouay-after-revelation-hes-desperate-for-off-season-ferrand-prevot-reboots-for-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/104864\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Aert Pulls out of Plouay after Revelation He’s Desperate for Off-Season, Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot Reboots for Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Maybe I’m longing for the end of the season’: Demotivated Van Aert abandons previous plan to race GP Plouay, will focus on Canadian GPs.<\/p>\n

\"Wout<\/p>\n

(Photo: TOM GOYVAERTS\/Belga\/AFP via Getty Images )<\/p>\n

Updated August 29, 2025 03:29AM<\/p>\n

Wout van Aert<\/a> recently revealed he\u2019s craving the couch, and now he pivoted from the plan to race the Bretagne Classic-GP Plouay.<\/p>\n

Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed Thursday<\/a> that Van Aert has pulled the plug on Sunday\u2019s WorldTour one-dayer and will instead focus on the Canadian GPs.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Van Aert\u2019s teammate Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot<\/a> will return to the peloton at the French classic in her first race since she romped to victory at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Aert \u2018longing for the end of the season\u2019<\/p>\n

Van Aert\u2019s calendar reshuffle is both a surprise and not.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old recently hinted he\u2019s over 2025.<\/p>\n

The cobbled classics, Giro d\u2019Italia, Tour de France, and more recently, the Deutschland Tour packed out his early calendar.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s feeling rudderless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, the Tour de France was followed by major goals \u2013 the Olympics, worlds, or \u2013 after all my injuries last year \u2013 the Vuelta. After my busy spring, I figured things would be a little less exciting this time,\u201d Van Aert told Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s mainly a mental issue,\u201d Van Aert said last weekend from the Germany tour.<\/p>\n

Van Aert already confirmed he won\u2019t race the mountainous road worlds<\/a>, so he\u2019s pretty much left counting the days until he can have a lay-in.<\/p>\n

September\u2019s Qu\u00e9bec and Montr\u00e9al GPs, and the Super 8 Classic, are the only races left on his road program for 2025.<\/p>\n

But fear not, Wout fans.<\/p>\n

The Belgian told HNB\u00a0he\u2019s not bored or burned out in some Poga\u010dar-esque malaise.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I\u2019m longing for the end of the season a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s perfectly normal that after a tough period of racing you need a change of pace. Every rider will agree with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olav Kooij, Cian Uijtdebroeks, and Christophe Laporte will lead Visma-Lease a Bike for Sunday\u2019s classic in Van Aert\u2019s absense.<\/p>\n

Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates XRG), Marc Hirschi (Tudor), and Biniam Girmay (Intermarch\u00e9-Wanty) will be looking to get in their way.<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot rebooting for Rwanda
\n\"FerrandFerrand Prevot makes her racing return, four weeks after winning the Tour. (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images )<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot makes her return Sunday at the women\u2019s race in Plouay.<\/p>\n

The Tour de France Femmes winner recently reversed her decision<\/a> and decided to race the Kigali road worlds.<\/p>\n

After enjoying four weeks of post-Tour peace, Sunday\u2019s hilly classic is the start of her warm-up for \u201cProject Rainbow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Tour de France Femmes, I deliberately allowed myself a short period of rest, both to recover physically and to process everything mentally,\u201d Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot said Thursday in a team statement. \u201cThat was important, but now I feel full of energy and motivation to race again together with my teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to getting back that racing feeling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot will team up with Marianne Vos for a double-punch that should make V-LAB the pre-race favorites.<\/p>\n

However, for Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, Plouay is all in service of another rainbow jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to test myself there again,\u201d she said. \u201cMoreover, Plouay is a great opportunity to gain racing rhythm and to keep working on my form in the lead-up to the coming weeks and the world championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot will also race the Tour de l\u2019Ardeche early next month before she flies to Rwanda in the hunt for her first road world title in 11 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Maybe I’m longing for the end of the season’: Demotivated Van Aert abandons previous plan to race GP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,68224,85,75491,75492,75493,75494,75495,67883],"class_list":["post-104864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-bretagne-classic-ouest-france","tag-tag-gp-ouest-france-plouay","tag-tag-pauline-ferrand-prevot","tag-tag-uci-road-world-championships","tag-tag-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}