Wout van Aert: “Hopefully I will be just a little less changeable at the end of the spring”

After his short cyclocross season, Wout van Aert got ready for 2022 via two internships – two weeks in Alicante and three weeks in Tenerife. “I have never been able to work towards spring so relaxed before,” he says. “Today I am where I hoped to be right now.”

It was last Friday that Van Aert had planned an afternoon of zooming and calling, from his room in Hotel Parador on the Teide. “One and a half to two hours of interviews. Then suddenly I’m off,” he laughed. “A last training block will follow in the weekend, Monday my three weeks in Tenerife will be over and I will fly back home. On Thursday we will meet again with the teammates, Friday we will explore the final of the Omloop.”

How has the run-up to the road season been?
“Amazingly good. In December and early January everyone could see how smoothly it went while racing. Everything went as planned after that. Things seemed to go wrong for a while when our training camp in Alicante was interrupted by a corona infection, but in the end I was still able to work well. After a nice period at home, I started the real preparation on February 1, here in Tenerife.”

Didn’t suffer too much from the heavy corona measures that the team took? You all sleep separately, we heard…
“Actually, that’s not quite right. That was not feasible. You may know that the rooms at Hotel Parador are highly coveted. But of course we take sufficient measures. In the beginning we worked in groups of four and there was a lot of testing. In this way we ensured that, if there had been an infection, not everyone became a victim. And whoever arrived new lived for five days separately from the rest. Both in terms of sleeping, eating and training.”

“We have been spared – holding wood – for the time being. We have now been here for a week with the same group of ten riders. And if you arrive healthy and negative, the chance that you will still be infected is relatively small. We have no contact with the tourists, our part of the restaurant is well protected. And besides cycling, eating and lying in bed, we don’t do much. We live safer here than anywhere else.”

Testing positive for corona, it remains the fear of every athlete…
“I don’t want to set myself up as a virologist, but I think it’s time to let go of that whole test story and look at corona as a number of other diseases. Of course you have to go home if you get sick. But you see how easily the virus goes around in the first races. It is a situation that is not sustainable.”

You are currently training there with nine teammates. Who are all those?
“Six riders from the classic core: Tosh Van Der Sande, Tiesj Benoot, Nathan Van Hooydonck, Mike Teunissen, Christophe Laporte and myself. Supplemented by four riders: Steven Kruijswijk, Rohan Dennis, Jonas Vingegaard and – my roommate – Primož Roglič.”

I assume you train in two groups?
“No not really. We leave in full. Everyone follows their own schedule along the way, of course, but it only really falls apart when you return to the hotel. Logical, if you keep having to climb to two thousand meters in order to exit.”

Will Wout van Aert come in with the round riders or with the classic core?
“That depends on which training I do. I didn’t mean to force me here every day. Don’t worry, I occasionally play in my own weight class.”

Can you give us some explanation about your structure?
“The idea of ​​my preparation is a bit different from that of the teammates. Usually you first try to get the base as wide as possible and gradually increase the intensity from January. However, because of cyclocross, that intensity comes a bit faster for me and I especially have to avoid being in shape too quickly with a base that is too narrow. That is why I focused on endurance training and a little more sprint work during the internship in Alicante. My goals are later in the spring, hence the conscious choice for a really broad base. Hopefully there will be some extra explosiveness after the first races, so that I am at my best against Milan-San Remo. I want to extend that to Paris-Roubaix.”

How competitive will you be in the Omloop?
“Guys who already have two smaller stage races in their legs will have a little advantage in the opening weekend, I think. The effect of this altitude stage comes a little later and should give us that little bit extra in March-April. The Omloop is more of a test for us to see how we can race together. But if, like last year, we drive to the finish with a large group, I assume that we will still be there with a number of teammates who are capable of taking a shot at victory.”

The biggest change, in addition to the reinforced spring core, is that after the Belgian championship you stopped looking at the cyclo-cross season. What concrete benefits has this yielded?
“A bit like what I just mentioned, in the January internship I trained on interval and hardness in recent years, to work towards the top form towards the World Cup. Now we just avoided that and put in a lot more hours. As a result, I started here in Tenerife with a much better basic condition. It also provides a mental benefit. I was able to train very relaxed.”

“In the past few years it was usually a race against time to be in order on time. I remember last year when I fought for two weeks in Tenerife to get that good feeling and I succeeded at the last minute. Now it all went much smoother. And hopefully at the end of the spring I will be just that little bit less changeable.”

What did you bring from 2021? I spontaneously think of the Tour of Britain, where you were perhaps better than at the World Cup and in Paris-Roubaix.
“Physically I was still okay in Roubaix. Most of all, I paid the toll of a long season where I was at the appointment every game. In that respect I should indeed have approached the Tour of Britain differently. It would have been better to travel to England with a little less preparation, hoping to take another step there. Now the work was already done when I got there. If you are one hundred percent fresh in your head, you can continue that. Now I win four stages and the final classification and I could only lose in the races that followed. I wasted a lot of energy there. I will certainly take that with me.”

Van Aert in last year’s Tour of Britain – photo: Cor Vos © 2021

“But it’s also relative. May I give 2020 as a counterexample? Then I was top everywhere from 1 August to the end of October, albeit after a longer rest period beforehand. That is why I now have a different preparation. With the intention of being at my best only from Milan-San Remo.”

Your story in the Tirreno resembles that of Great Britain. So will Paris-Nice be a real preparation race this year?
“Not because I don’t think it can go together, because you shouldn’t gain a few extra pounds in Paris-Nice if you want to be good in the spring. But it shouldn’t get in the way of going all out every day, physically and mentally. That’s why I approach Paris-Nice differently than the Tirreno last year, where I went all out for that final classification. Almost incompatible. Although I would like to go for it someday, for a round of a week. That must be within my means. But not when the classics follow.”

We remember: in Paris-Nice Van Aert occasionally enters the big peloton.
“We have a better man in the team for the classification (Roglič, ed.). But I’m not going to cycle there like a tourist either! I worked too hard for that. In that short period of time, which is spring, you have to grab what you can. I want to contribute to the team, but also go full in the time trial and also go somewhere for a stage win, but especially not every day until the gap. So that is indeed dosing, occasionally saving energy and arriving at a disadvantage.”

Let’s talk about the reinforced spring core of Jumbo-Visma. What does that change for you?
“It should no longer be the intention that I am alone in the run-up to the final. I believe that will no longer be the case. Over the past few weeks, work has not only been done on, but also off the bike. We now form a close-knit group, tactics have been thought through, matches from recent years have been reviewed and analysed. It is more than attracting a few good riders.”

Which of the teammates impressed you in Tenerife?
“It goes smoothly for everyone, but if I have to pick one, then Mike Teunissen. I’ve never seen him drive so fast. Of course I also know Mike best, so I can compare well with previous years.”

What have you learned from the preparatory matches?
“Gosh.. The men of the classics are quite spread out. That makes it difficult to estimate. Bryan Coquard caught my eye. At Quick-Step-Alpa Vinyl they have already started the season well. I immediately think of Yves Lampaert, who gave a good impression. But we don’t see everything on TV. For example, what have Oliver Naesen and Greg Van Avermaet already done before we see the final? We may be wiser after the weekend.”

Wout van Aert and Mike Teunissen at the team presentation in Alicante – photo © Bram Berken – Jumbo-Visma