{"id":507419,"date":"2026-04-01T17:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T17:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:07:09","slug":"itd-have-been-nicer-if-the-finish-was-150-metres-earlier-wout-van-aert-rues-heartbreaking-near-miss-in-dwars-door-vlaanderen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507419\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’d have been nicer if the finish was 150 metres earlier’ \u2013 Wout van Aert rues heartbreaking near miss in Dwars door Vlaanderen"},"content":{"rendered":"

So near and yet so very far. Wout van Aert’s chances of his first Classics win since 2023 and his first ever in Dwars door Vlaanderen <\/a>evaporated agonisingly close to the line in Waregem at the hands of Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers).<\/p>\n

After strong rides with third place in Milan-San Remo <\/a>and a real shot at victory alongside fellow breakaway Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech<\/a>) during In Flanders Fields last weekend, Van Aert had done everything right in Dwars door Vlaanderen finally to claim the win.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Visibly the strongest rider in the race and able to stay ahead with Niklas Larsen (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) despite the speeding peloton, Van Aert finally took off alone 10 kilometres from the line.<\/p>\n

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It almost worked, only for Ganna to roar past his right-hand side with less than 100 metres to go, with Van Aert taking the runner-up spot just a few bike lengths behind. All this in the same finish where last year he and two other Visma riders somehow lost to Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost). Of Van Aert’s 49 second places in his career to date, this was arguably the most heartbreaking of them all.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, it’d have been nicer if the finish was 150 metres earlier, I tried everything I had,” Van Aert said later in a TV interview. “I was really dying in the end, and if somebody passed me, then that’s racing.”<\/p>\n

Asked to take viewers through the last 40 kilometres, Van Aert said he had attacked on the Eikenberg, “and when I got there, I had really good companions there with Gr\u00e9goire and Larsen. We cooperated well.<\/p>\n

“But I could feel the pace was slowly decreasing in the end so I had to try and attack in search of victory. Until the very last moment I thought it would be maybe just enough to make it.<\/p>\n

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“I almost never looked back, I just focussed on my own effort, but after the last corners, suddenly Ganna was there.”<\/p>\n

He only knew for sure that Ganna would pass him, he said, because he tried not to look back.<\/p>\n

“Suddenly I saw a wheel right next to me and then I knew that I would get nothing back.<\/p>\n

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“It was a good race, it was a bit of a strange race in the middle part, it got launched quite early but there was some parts in the middle bit when we didn’t really push on, let’s say.<\/p>\n

“So a lot of guys could come back and it was quite a while before we could make a proper selection. After the Eikenberg I did a good final, I believe.”<\/p>\n

On the plus side, Van Aert is clearly coming into the Tour of Flanders<\/a> in top condition, even if he will have rivals of the calibre of Van der Poel, Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and \u2013 as of today’s announcement<\/a> \u2013 Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) to face.<\/p>\n

But as near-misses go, and with the memory of how Van der Poel just managed to fend off the opposition at E3 Saxo Classic in a very similar scenario fresh in everybody’s mind too, Van Aert’s defeat at Waregem will likely remain in a league of its own for quite some time.<\/p>\n

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We’ll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So near and yet so very far. Wout van Aert’s chances of his first Classics win since 2023…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-507419","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\/507419","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=507419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}