{"id":54765,"date":"2025-08-08T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54765\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:14:07","slug":"wout-van-aert-to-skip-world-championships-will-end-packed-season-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/54765\/","title":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert to skip World Championships, will end &#8216;packed season&#8217; in September"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"1ab4a06a-6732-4da9-953f-c6f6c6031acc\">Belgium&#8217;s <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/wout-van-aert\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/wout-van-aert\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wout van Aert<\/a> (<a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/road\/teams\/uci-worldtour\/2025\/visma-lease-a-bike\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/road\/teams\/uci-worldtour\/2025\/visma-lease-a-bike\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a>) will skip the European and World Championships, and end his season with the Deutschland Tour and four one-day races, his team have confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert, who has already ridden two Grand Tours this season in the Giro d&#8217;Italia and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-de-france\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-de-france\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France<\/a>, was a question mark for the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/uci-road-world-championships\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/uci-road-world-championships\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Championships in Rwanda<\/a>, but is now confirmed as not going, opting to end his season at the Super 8 Classic in Belgium on September 20.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" data-url=\"\" href=\"\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"1ab4a06a-6732-4da9-953f-c6f6c6031acc-2\">Before that, he will race the Deutschland Tour (August 20-24), the Bretagne Classic (August 31) and the double-header of Canadian one-day races, the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/grand-prix-cycliste-de-quebec\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/grand-prix-cycliste-de-quebec\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GP de Qu\u00e9bec<\/a> and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/grand-prix-cycliste-de-montreal\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/grand-prix-cycliste-de-montreal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GP de Montr\u00e9al<\/a> (September 12 and 14).<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p>While riders like <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/tadej-pogacar\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/tadej-pogacar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) will use those races as a tune-up for Worlds, Van Aert will then head home to end his season at the Super 8 Classic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s important to still set some important goals for the last part of the season, and with this calendar, we\u2019ve certainly succeeded,&#8221; Van Aert said, explaining his programme choice for the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the same time, after such a packed season, it\u2019s crucial not to overdo it. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve decided to end my season after the Super 8 Classic and skip both the World Championships and European Championships.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Riding two Grand Tours this year and two last year, Van Aert rode four Grand Tours in a row in the space of 12 months, achieving stage wins at three of them, including <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/races\/tour-de-france-2025\/stage-21\/results\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/races\/tour-de-france-2025\/stage-21\/results\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stage 21<\/a> of this year&#8217;s Tour de France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">He also raced a full Spring Classics block, and reflected positively on his 2025 campaign as he moves into the final phase of the season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s been a great year, with major goals coming in quick succession,&#8221; he said. &#8220;As in most years, the Spring Classics and the Tour de France were my main objectives. I\u2019m also happy that I finally got to experience the Giro d\u2019Italia. That variety \u2013 the same reason I rode the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a for the first time last year \u2013 is something I need and find very motivating.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His successes have earned him fourth in the UCI rankings at present, and he could have been a contender for more success in the road races or time trials at Worlds and Europeans, but has opted to close out his season earlier, after starting in February at the Cl\u00e1sica Ja\u00e9n.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Though the road race course in Rwanda may have been too hard for Van Aert, his absence will mean the Belgian national squad is down a key support rider as <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/remco-evenepoel\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/remco-evenepoel\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Remco Evenepoel<\/a> chases more rainbow bands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium&#8217;s Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) will skip the European and World Championships, and end his season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-54765","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\/54765","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=54765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}