Wout van Aert - 'Maybe I am longing a little for the end of the season'
Wout van Aert closed his 2025 stage racing campaign at the Deutschland Tour, where he played a key role for teammate Matthew Brennan, who took two stage wins, but could not fight for the overall himself. The Belgian admitted that he has felt the effects of the Tour de France and spoke candidly about the challenges of carrying form into the late summer.
“What I had already noticed in Hamburg, I felt again here,” he told Het Nieuwsblad. “After the Tour de France I definitely took a step back. And if you do not have the legs to do something in the finale, you are disappointed. On the other hand, I enjoyed myself in the last few days.”
The four days of racing in Germany, however, gave him the stimulus he was looking for. “The legs felt better every day. But whether that will be enough for a leading role in my last big one-day races this year?” Van Aert hopes so. “But maybe I am longing a little for the end of the season. This is what I needed though. It gives me motivation to make the most of the coming month.”
Van Aert’s calendar now turns toward one-day races: the Bretagne Classic, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and Montréal, and the Bpost Bank Classic in mid-September. In previous seasons, he has managed to peak again at this point, but he recognises the situation is different this year.
“In the past there were often big goals after the Tour: the Olympics, the Worlds, or last year the Vuelta after my injuries. This time it was expected that things would be a bit less after my Spring Classics campaign. It is mainly a mental matter. The Tour was for me kind of the endpoint of this season. Afterwards I just looked at what I would still do. Only that is not the right motivation to start training again at the beginning of August. You just feel that.”
Other riders have admitted to the same kind of post-Tour letdown. Tim Merlier said he felt miserable in the aftermath, while Tour winner Tadej Pogačar even claimed he was counting down to his retirement. Van Aert laughed at the comparison.
“That last one certainly not. I am still too young to think about retirement. But maybe I am longing a little for the end of the season. It does not surprise me. It is very normal that after a heavy racing block, you need something else. Every rider will admit that. It just gets blown up a little now because Tadej puts it so strongly. But it is not that strange.”
With his campaign wrapping up in September, the question remains whether he will return to cyclocross earlier and more often this winter. “That has not been discussed yet,” he said. “And certainly not decided. The idea is that I might stop a bit earlier to rest and then build up again sooner. It is still a matter of seeing how cross fits into that. But that I will race in the cross is certain. It is definitely not the plan to skip a winter.”
