{"id":2666,"date":"2025-07-17T11:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T11:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/2666\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T11:40:08","slug":"that-was-a-truly-special-day-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/2666\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThat was a truly special day in my life”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stage 12 of the 2025 Tour de France<\/a> brings cycling’s most iconic race back to Hautacam for what is set to be a potentially decisive summit finish this Thursday afternoon. The climb is one that has plenty of positive memories for Wout van Aert<\/a>.Back at the 2022 edition of the Tour, Van Aert put in probably the greatest single day performance of his entire career, emerging as the architect of Tadej Pogacar<\/a>‘s downfall in the high mountains and setting team leader Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> on the path to his first ever Tour de France win in the process. Ahead of his return to Hautacam, Van Aert has reflected on that day back in July 2022.\u00a0\u201cThat was a truly special day in my life. I still enjoy rewatching that footage,\u201d recalls the Team Visma <\/a>| Lease a Bike star fondly in comments collected by HLN<\/a>, admitting that even Pogacar is unlikely to have forgotten the sheer brutality of that infamous day. \u201cAnd nor have I \u2014 my legs hurt for a long time after that effort,\u201d Van Aert adds with a grin.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now the big question is, can Van Aert play a similarly heroic and decisive role on Hautacam this time around as Vingegaard and Pogacar once again look set to lock horns in the fight for the Maillot Jaune.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think it\u2019s a shit tactic. They wonder what we\u2019re doing \u2014 we ride full gas all day and then Pogacar wins anyway. But we\u2019re not chasing stage wins. We want to wear him down so we can strike in the third week,\u201d explains a ‘Visma insider’ to HLN. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to break someone, you do it gradually. Day after day, climb after climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visma acted out a similar tactic three years ago, with Pogacar ultimately cracking on Hautacam. As such, there is an ominous confidence with the Visma team and all eyes will be on the UAE leader this afternoon. \u201cRacing is routine,\u201d the source explains in conclusion. \u201cRiders are creatures of habit, and eventually, you know your rivals\u2019 habits too. When they start doing things differently, it means something\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stage 12 of the 2025 Tour de France brings cycling’s most iconic race back to Hautacam for what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-2666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}