{"id":914291,"date":"2026-10-03T05:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914291\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T05:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:12:15","slug":"van-aert-under-fire-for-world-championships-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914291\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Aert under fire for World Championships tactics."},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgium headed to the World Cycling Championships in Montreal with two top favourites. Wout van Aert<\/a> and Remco Evenepoel<\/a> ensured that the Belgians had a chance in virtually every conceivable scenario, but came away empty-handed after a very disappointing race. Tom Boonen, Jan Bakelants, and Eddy Planckaert discussed the disappointment on the Wielerclub Wattage podcast.Belgium favourites criticised for failing to perform\u00a0Van Aert was part of a dangerous breakaway early in the race, which included Mathieu van der Poel<\/a>, among others. However, Van Aert wasn\u2019t the strongest rider in that group, and he was forced to drop back.Things weren\u2019t looking good for his fellow team leader, Evenepoel, either. He was dropped countless times but managed to bridge back across to the group each time. It wasn\u2019t enough for the world title; he finished twelfth. Van Aert crossed the finish line in 28th place.<\/a>Former World Champion Boonen voiced belief that Belgium had ‘failed’<\/p>\n

Boonen believes that Belgium failed when you look at the big picture. \u201cThey certainly didn\u2019t ride well. In the end, Remco rode the best of them all thanks to his resilience\u2014always fighting his way back and never giving up. Wout didn\u2019t ride well, and the rest of the team, except for Alec Segaert, also had a bad day. Is there an explanation for that? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”<\/p>\n

Planckaert was a tough critic, especially against the leaders. He said of Van Aert: \u201cHe closes the gap on Van der Poel, but if Van der Poel pushes a bit harder twice, he\u2019s left behind.”<\/p>\n

He didn’t hold back when talking about Evenepoel’s performance either. “If Del Toro<\/a> had really gone on the attack, Evenepoel would never have come back either. People talk about character, but if the pace doesn\u2019t slow down, Evenepoel will never come back.”<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"remco-evenepoel-2\"\/<\/p>\n

Remco Evenepoel failed to perform at the 2026 World Championships\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bakelants on Van Aert: ‘I thought he’d got the message after Roubaix’<\/p>\n

Bakelants had already been quite critical in his analysis. \u201cIt was a fantastic World Championship, but what a weak performance by the Belgians,\u201d he wrote in a column at the time. \u201cNo one managed to rise above themselves. Worse still, no one even came close to their best level.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the podcast, he revisits this point, with particularly harsh words for Van Aert. He argues that Van Aert should have waited longer.<\/p>\n

“I thought he\u2019d got the message after Paris-Roubaix. But how did Tom [Boonen] become world champion? Not by riding recklessly in Madrid, but by trusting his teammates and knowing: \u2018That\u2019s my strength, and I have to rely on it.\u2019 It was a unique opportunity for Van Aert, because I knew that if Pedersen could be there, then you had to stay with him.”<\/p>\n

Van Aert had been touted beforehand as one of the team leaders, but Boonen thinks things were actually a little different. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the agreements were. I don\u2019t think Wout was at the start as the team leader. From what I\u2019ve seen of him racing, I don\u2019t think so. They told us he was, but that\u2019s different from what they tell those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium headed to the World Cycling Championships in Montreal with two top favourites. Wout van Aert and Remco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,16656,8396,85,58412],"class_list":["post-914291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-cycling-world-championships","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-wout-van-aert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914291","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=914291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}