'Maybe I should have played it smarter' - Van Aert rues lack of belief in tough Vuelta finale

Wout van Aert was a man on a mission on stage 7 of the Vuelta a España, mindful that the rugged run into Aragon offered him a chance to amass a hefty haul of points towards the green jersey.

The Belgian began the day with the maillot verde on his back, but only because Tadej Pogacar can only wear one jersey at a time. Van Aert is now officially atop the standings, two points clear of Pogacar, but he wondered if it could have been more after placing third on the summit finish at Valdelinares.

Van Aert was the main driver of a five-man move with Eddie Dunbar (Pinarello Q36.5), Alexey Lutsenko (NSN) and the Uno-X duo of Andreas Leknessund and Tobias Halland Johannessen, and his main objective was to ensure he amassed maximum points in the intermediate sprint at Mora de Rubielos before surviving as best he could on the final ascent.

In hindsight, Van Aert might have been a touch more ambitious. He climbed smoothly on the haul to Valdelinares, but he couldn’t match Leknessund’s winning acceleration with 7.5km to go, and he came in 47 seconds down on the Norwegian.

“Honestly, I regret maybe a little bit that I didn’t have confidence in myself for the last climb,” Van Aert said in the mixed zone behind the podium. “During the day I thought it would have been nice to take the points on the intermediate and then have as big margin as possible so I could at least do top five in the stage. That was the idea I kept for a while. 

“But then on the final climb, I could see a lot of the others were also really tired, so maybe I should have played it a bit smarter. But that’s also my nature, I think.”

Van Aert’s generosity in the break of the day was rewarded with the official lead in the points classification, a prize he had all but secured on the 2024 Vuelta before he crashed out of the race on the road to Lagos da Covadonga. 

This time around, Van Aert’s challenge faces two notable obstacles. His chief rival is the insatiable Pogacar, already winner of three stages, while his own ability to collect points on flat days is hindered by his role in Visma | Lease a Bike teammate Matthew Brennan’s lead-out train. If Van Aert is to claim the green jersey in Granada, he will need to repeat this aggression several times over. 

“I hope it will not take as much energy every day like it did in this stage, but in the Vuelta, you need climbing legs also to compete for the green jersey,” Van Aert said. “But the legs are there, so let’s try it.”

The day’s winner Leknessund certainly believed so. He revealed afterwards that he had tracked Van Aert from as early as the neutralised zone, maintaining – correctly – that the Belgian’s was the wheel to follow. His instincts served him well.

“We were side by side in the neutralised zone and he asked me what my plan was,” Van Aert said. “I told him that I wanted to get in the break so maybe for that reason, he immediately took my wheel. But he was a very strong breakaway companion and I’m very happy for him that he won in the end too. As for me, it felt easier to suffer today, so I’m happy with how I rode.”