{"id":547390,"date":"2026-04-24T01:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:02:12","slug":"an-emotion-ive-rarely-felt-it-came-from-so-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547390\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAn emotion I\u2019ve rarely felt. It came from so deep…\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nThere was no final target, no last campaign built around the Classics, no opportunity to see through the role he had spent years fulfilling inside Team Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That role had always been tied to riders like Van Aert. The type of victories he helped build were never his to finish, but they were always part of his purpose.<\/p>\n

Watching the moment from the outsideBy the time Roubaix arrived in 2026, Van Hooydonck was no longer in the race convoy as a rider. The environment was familiar, but his position within it had changed completely. Speaking on De Rode Lantaarn<\/a>, Van Hooydonck admitted: \u201cI was really stressed. I\u2019ve never experienced that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the ability to influence the outcome, the experience became one of pure anticipation. The closer Van Aert came to victory, the more the weight of the moment grew. \u201cI always believed. I\u2019ve always believed in Wout. But I wasn\u2019t certain.\u201d<\/p>\n

That belief was not without foundation. The last time Tadej Pogacar had been beaten in a major head to head sprint came on the Champs-Elysees at the Tour de France, where Van Aert had come out on top.<\/p>\n

\"Wout<\/p>\n

Van Aert poses with his trophy post-race<\/p>\n

The decisive moment<\/p>\n

When Van Aert made his move against Pogacar in the Roubaix velodrome, the reaction was instinctive. \u201cI saw him launch, then I looked away, and then I looked up again\u2026 he already had two metres. I started celebrating far too early.\u201d<\/p>\n

What followed was not just celebration, but something deeper. \u201cIt\u2019s an emotion I\u2019ve rarely felt. It came from so deep\u2026 so special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those words lead into the line that defines his experience of the day. \u201cThis has completed my cycling career.\u201d<\/p>\n

A shared goal, finally realised<\/p>\n

The meaning of that statement becomes clearer when placed alongside another reflection. \u201cThis is something we did, but above all Wout did.\u201d<\/p>\n

It captures both sides of the moment. The shared journey that led there, and the individual achievement that ultimately defined it. For Van Hooydonck, that balance is what gives the victory its weight. \u201cThis is what I wanted to achieve with him as a rider. That didn\u2019t happen. But in this role, I can still be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, his work was built around helping deliver exactly this kind of win. Paris-Roubaix<\/a> was the type of race where that effort would have mattered most.More than just Roubaix<\/p>\n

For Van Aert, the 2026 edition of Paris-Roubaix will always stand as a defining victory. For Van Hooydonck, it serves a different purpose. Not as a replacement for what was lost, but as a way of closing a chapter that never had the chance to end on its own terms.<\/p>\n

And that is why, for him, this was never just another win.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was no final target, no last campaign built around the Classics, no opportunity to see through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,188435,110509,101,36242,56,54,55,8783],"class_list":{"0":"post-547390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-nathan-van-hooydonck","10":"tag-paris-roubaix","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wout-van-aert"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547390","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=547390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}