Van Aert reveals elbow pain intensified on day of stage victory - ‘We have to keep an eye on it’

Van Aert was dropped within 9km of the start of Tuesday's team time trial, where Visma | Lease a Bike eventually went on to win the stage. The Belgian's stage 4 sprint behind the break gave the first sign that his legs were coming around, and Van Aert was feeling great to take his 6th individual stage win at the Dauphiné.

"Yeah, of course. Winning is always nice, especially in a big race like this. So, yeah, I'm really happy with this stage win," said Van Aert in his post-race interview.

"Probably the shape is not much different now, but the last two days were just a bit easier and suited me better with my current form. I think it was a difficult start. It was even difficult today, mentally," stated the Belgian

Van Aert arrived at the race with bandages on his right knee and elbow after a TT bike training crash six days before the start.

“Definitely not ideal,” Van Aert said regarding the crash to In de Leiderstrui.  "The last days at home were painful and that made for difficult training sessions as well. It is what it is and you always have to adapt.”

"Still, sometimes it's painful after the crash I had just before this race. But with the team I have around me and they were chasing the whole day, the breakaway, I just had to try."

With three extremely tough days still to come in the French stage race, Van Aert admitted at the press conference that the elbow issue needed to be monitored closely. "Today it hurt more than on other days," he said. "We have to keep an eye on it. Hopefully it goes in the right direction."

Bruno Armirail, the three-time French time trial champion who joined Visma | Lease a Bike from Decathlon CMA CGM in 2026, set the tempo for much of the closing kilometres.

"Bruno Armirail was impressively strong on the front until the last few kilometres. And the other boys did an amazing job to bring me to the line, so I have to thank them."

Stage 4 had given Van Aert his first glimpse of his sprint condition in the race, with the Belgian taking the bunch sprint behind Quinn Simmons' break for eleventh place after earlier opportunities in the race were denied due to a breakaway simply too far out of sight.

"Yeah, honestly, sprints were going pretty well already the whole year and also the last few weeks on training. So in the sprint I was definitely confident I had a good chance."

The race's heavy climbing in the opening of stages of the Dauphinéhas made bunch sprints rare in the 2026 edition, with the peloton repeatedly losing control of breakaways.

"This is such a hard race with a lot of altitude metres, not many sprinter teams, so every day is a bit of a question mark if it's possible to control the bunch. Because if 15 other teams want to go in the breakaway, you have no chance. But today we did a great job from the start. And we were able to have a break in the front that we could cut back. That's how I got this opportunity."

Asked whether the win was a major confidence boost before the Tour de France in July, Van Aert was unambiguous.

"Yeah, happy with this and I have to keep working now," concluded Van Aert