Wout van Aert has conquered the world and he is now conquering the Tour de France

There is no other rider on the Tour de France like Wout van Aert. Jumbo-Visma, who started on the circuit for 24 years, built a multidisciplinary CV that would make everyone in the pack blush. This morning, he confirmed his potential as a complete highway destroyer by engaging a whole class of specialists and beating them at their own game. Look at the distance van Aert is maintaining a ridiculous pace before winning a close win at the 10th stage .

Van Aert won his first senior cyclocross world championship in 2016 while he was only 21 years old. He then won this title with victories in 2017 and 2018, and also added two cyclo-cross world cup titles and a Superprestige championship. With the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, he essentially rewrote the entire sport overnight, inaugurating the era of Sven Nys-Niels Albert and transforming high-level cyclo-cross into a rivalry between two male geniuses.

Both men have entered the road race this season to a degree comparable to that before, and both have enjoyed immediate success. Van der Poel was the revelation of spring, taking three day classics and finishing just on the podium of the Tour of Flanders. Van Aert, meanwhile, won podiums and top-ten in the spring and continued his momentum until the stage racing season. Belgian trail champion, he won two stages and the points jersey at the Critérium du Dauphine, the prestige race of the Tour de France.

His Tour was already a success after the first two stages, where he helped his team to win the first stage on the road, then played a role in the team time trial victory, winning the jersey himself. white of the best young runner. But it improved even more today during an unexpected ride in the south of France.

Over the last 30 or so kilometers of today's special, orthogonal side winds blew directly onto the right flank of the peloton, which was an opportunity to separate the group and leave the contenders in the overall standings. distrust hold the bag. The headwinds had already wreaked havoc on the Tour, especially in 2013, when Alejandro Valverde ended the race and Chris Froome lost a minute. hard like runners at the front.

When the wind blows aside, it changes the geometry of the writing so that the riders can not relax behind each other without being exposed to the wind. This is how the ladder is formed, and once the elastic clings into the peloton, it is much more difficult to fight this gap with the side winds. Van Aert's teammate George Bennett went to get bottled water for the team as two rival teams set the pace, and he fell from fourth place overall and lost 10 minutes. Today, a small group of 28 riders have found themselves in the leading group, with competitors like Jakob Fuglsang, Rigoberto Uran, Thibaut Pinot and Richie Porte losing minutes in the wind.

Van Aert was part of the lucky lead group, as were the best sprinters in the pack: Elia Viviani, Peter Sagan, Michael Matthews and Caleb Ewan. The phase was difficult, the head-gear had been bled by the damage caused by the protection of the team leaders during the brutal race, but that seemed to be the case for the sprinters. Instead, Van Aert powered. He went early, early and alone, but no one caught up with him in time.

It's an awesome way to win, against the best competitors of their kind. Two stage victories are more than expected from van Aert on his first lap, and it would be wise to wait for him at the end of a few more finals before the end of the first round. month.