{"id":44042,"date":"2025-08-04T20:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44042\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T20:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:50:12","slug":"worst-idea-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44042\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWorst idea of the week&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/wout-van-aert\" title=\"Wout van Aert\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wout van Aert<\/a> may have just pulled off one of the most memorable stage wins in recent <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-de-france\" title=\"Tour de France\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France<\/a> history \u2014 but the Belgian star\u2019s greatest challenge immediately after the race wasn\u2019t on a bike, it was in front of a passport photo booth.Fresh off a sensational victory on the rain-slicked cobbles of the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, where Van Aert stunned fans by dropping the seemingly unstoppable yellow jersey <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tadej-pogacar\" title=\"Tadej Pogacar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tadej Pogacar<\/a> on the final brutal climb of the C\u00f4te de la Butte Montmartre, he found himself facing a decidedly less glamorous task: renewing his passport photo.\u201cWorst idea of the week: Renewing my passport photo one day after finishing the Tour de France,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/woutvanaert\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Van Aert admitted on Instagram<\/a> with a self-deprecating tone, sharing the results of the fresh photo shoot. And judging by the slightly weary look in the new snapshots \u2014 taken just a day after his gruelling Tour finale \u2014 it\u2019s hard to disagree.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The final stage of the 2025 Tour de France was a spectacle for the ages. After neutralising the general classification times at the circuit\u2019s entrance due to heavy rain, many riders took it easy. But Van Aert threw caution to the wind, unleashing a devastating attack on the final ascent of the cobbled climb that featured in the 2024 Olympic course. He dropped Pogacar \u2014 who had been dominant all race \u2014 and powered to a remarkable victory.<\/p>\n<p>Yet just hours later, Van Aert was trading in his race kit for a more mundane setting, facing the unrelenting glare of the passport photo booth\u2019s camera. The contrast was striking: from hero of the Tour\u2019s grandest stage to the eternal struggle of \u201cplease don\u2019t blink\u201d that comes with a new official photo.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1bb67349-4b37-439b-9449-b2c104139f5d-6890cb48d05a5.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto\" alt=\"1bb67349-4b37-439b-9449-b2c104139f5d\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Van Aert\u2019s honesty and humour about the timing of the photo shoot have struck a chord with fans \u2014 proving that the Belgian remains one of the most entertaining figures in the peloton.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert may have just pulled off one of the most memorable stage wins in recent Tour&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-44042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}