{"id":724006,"date":"2026-06-08T23:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724006\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T23:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:42:11","slug":"i-wasnt-feeling-great-pre-race-training-crash-and-lack-of-form-sees-tough-return-for-wout-van-aert-at-tour-auvergne-rhone-alpes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724006\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I wasn’t feeling great’ – pre-race training crash and lack of form sees tough return for Wout van Aert at Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wout van Aert<\/a> endured a tough return to competition as he took on the opening stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes <\/a>on Sunday, pinning on a race number for the first time since his monumental victory at Paris-Roubaix <\/a>in April.<\/p>\n

The Belgian finished 24 minutes down on stage 1, a tough and selective route in which he was never likely to challenge for the win, but might have been expected not to finish quite so far down.<\/p>\n

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“Unfortunately, I was not feeling great immediately,” Van Aert said to Sporza <\/a>and ProCyclingnet<\/a> at the stage 2 start.<\/p>\n

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“I knew anyway that it would be too tough for me, but of course I wasn’t feeling my best either. So I chose not to push and to finish in a fairly conservative way.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t terribly bad. It was my own choice not to push myself too hard. I hope to feel better today [Monday], and if not, I just need to stay calm.”<\/p>\n

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Van Aert’s build-up to the race was complicated by a recent crash in training, which has seen him line up at the race formerly known as the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 with bandages on his right arm and leg.<\/p>\n

“It was not a nice crash – I crashed on the TT bike and lost the handlebars in big pothole.<\/p>\n

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“It was not a soft landing, but I’m ok, and good enough to do this race. Otherwise I would not start here.”<\/p>\n

A gentler route on stage 2 would represent an opportunity for a fully-fit Van Aert. However, doubts over who’s going to control the race it remains to be seen whether he’ll be in the thick of the action. <\/p>\n

In any case, Van Aert does not seem too worried about his lack of form on the opening day, with the plan to use the race as a step towards the Tour de France in a busy summer, with a second Grand Tour to follow at the Vuelta ahead of the World Championships.<\/p>\n

“It’s always an important week, you can really progress a lot from a week like this when you have the right form coming in,” Van Aert said. “That’s why we’re here, to take that step forward.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert endured a tough return to competition as he took on the opening stage of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-724006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724006","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=724006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}