When the weather is bad, the hills are steep, and Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar are in action, you would usually expect Wout van Aert to be not far behind. But even with a Classics-style opening weekend, the Belgian has had a fairly quiet start to this year's Tour de France.
Van Aert finished 48th on stage 1, caught the wrong side of echelon splits – despite his Visma-Lease a Bike leader Jonas Vingegaard making it – and then 80th on stage 2 to Boulogne, a finish that would have usually suited him
A nine-time stage winner at the Tour de France, Van Aert would usually be expected to be in the mix on stages like this, but after suffering from sickness last weekend and only returning to racing for the first time since a tough Giro d'Italia, the Belgian isn't quite at his top level.
"Of course, Wout was sick last week. He couldn't do the Belgian Championships and he's not in 100% shape," Visma DS Grischa Niermann said after stage 2. "Then it can happen [that a rider is caught on] because it was very hard, there was only 20 guys there."
However, despite Van Aert's relative absence from the opening weekend of action, the team are not concerned about his form, particularly as his main role in this race will be to help Jonas Vingegaard on GC. The Belgian was a key part of both of the Dane's previous Tour victories.
"I'm not worried about it, Wout will come good," Niermann continued. "He still helped the team a lot and pulled on the third last climb where we wanted to go hard - it's a pity for us that he was not there for the stage win, but I'm not worried."
Van Aert did not have much to add after stage 2, simply telling Het Nieuwsblad "I didn’t have the legs to compete for the win."
In the Belgian's place, it was leader Vingegaard who stepped up to compete for the stage, and ended up finishing third, showing his strength to closely match Tadej Pogačar.
Though it may not have gone as originally planned, the day ended up still successful for Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike.
"Today, we wanted to go for the stage with Wout. He didn't feel super, so in the end, I had to try for it instead," the Dane explained. "The result was better than I expected, I'm really happy with my legs and how it went. We wanted to go for Wout, I think he didn't have the legs so then we tried to go for me and try to do something with Matteo, I think in the end it turned out to be a good day – obviously we would have liked to win the stage with Wout, [but] when he's not there, third is the maximum."
If he can ride into form and continue recovering from illness, there are more chances to come for Van Aert in the first week, with punchy finales on stages 4 and 7, before his attention likely turns to domestique de luxe duty in the mountains.
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