{"id":513811,"date":"2026-03-04T13:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513811\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T13:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:44:08","slug":"wout-aert-says-flat-tire-was-suspicious-hints-at-sabotage-at-le-samyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513811\/","title":{"rendered":"Wout Aert says flat tire was \u2018suspicious\u2019, hints at sabotage at Le Samyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wout van Aert was feeling good but felt frustrated after a late puncture at Le Samyn<\/a>\u2026he also suggested it was anything but random. The Visma\u2013Lease a Bike rider felt strong throughout the day, only for his hopes to be undone about ten kilometres from the finish when he hit a patch of glass and blew a tire, according to VTM, as reported by Wielerflits.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Belgian sure has had his share of bad luck these past years\u2013but van Aert wonders if this had nothing to do with chance.<\/p>\n

From the front to the back<\/p>\n

After the puncture, Van Aert first took a teammate\u2019s bike before finally grabbing a spare from the team car, but by then the damage was done and a significant gap had opened to the main group. \u201cWhen he got the flat in the finale, we were already one and a half minutes behind,\u201d Visma\u2019s Grischa Niermann told VTM. Van Aert later described the moment he realized something was off.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly there were a lot of shards of glass,\u201d he said, noting that the course was familiar and had been ridden multiple times before. \u201cIt can\u2019t have just appeared there by accident,\u201d he added, hinting that the incident felt a smidge unusual.<\/p>\n

Not a great start to 2026<\/p>\n

His Opening Weekend didn\u2019t go according to plan, either. The mutli-disciplined star fell ill just before Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and had to skip that and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. It was set to be a bit of a comeback race for him after a nasty fall during the \u2018cross season resulted in a fractured ankle. He was going pretty good too, set for a proper duel with world champ Mathieu van der Poel. Thankfully\u2013although he had to skip the rest of his shortened \u2018cross season, his recovery was quick after surgery and he got back on the bike pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

Next up for van Aert is Strade Bianche. He\u2019s won there before, and also took the \u201cStrade Bianche\u201d stage at the Giro d\u2019Italia in 2025. Maybe Saturday could be a big day? He\u2019ll face some stiff competition with world road champ Tadej Poga\u010dar and his UAE teammate Isaac del Toro. There\u2019s also Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling\u2019sTom Pidcock. And don\u2019t forget the absolute prodige Paul Seixas from Decathlon CMA CGM. Who knows what the talented young pro can do next\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert was feeling good but felt frustrated after a late puncture at Le Samyn\u2026he also suggested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,189445,82,11588,141378,12290],"class_list":["post-513811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-le-samyn","tag-sports","tag-spotlight","tag-strade-bianche","tag-wout-van-aert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513811","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=513811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}