Wout van Aert said he underestimated himself after a fruitful and nearly sensational but ultimately disappointing day out at the Vuelta a España.
The Paris-Roubaix champion made it up the road on a day the breakaway survived to contest the stage on the category-1 summit finish to Aramón Valdelinares, and he made it into a five-man move that fought it out between them on that final climb.
Van Aert ticked off his primary target as he collected 20 points at the intermediate sprint with 25km to go but he went on to ride so well on the final climb that it ended up leaving him with a sense of regret.
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In the end, Van Aert was worked over by two more natural climbers riding with the tactical advantage of wearing the same Uno-X jersey. Andreas Leknessund soloed off to win the stage, while Tobias Haaland Johannessen sat on the chasing Van Aert before skipping clear near the line.
"Honestly, I regret maybe a little bit that I didn't have confidence in myself for the last climb," Van Aert said, responding to a suggestion that he'd done a lot of work and spent a lot of energy to drive the breakaway on.
"During the day I thought it would be nice to take the points at the intermediate and then have as big a margin as possible to do top five on 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 tired, so maybe I should have played it a bit smarter, but that's also my nature, I think."
When asked if he underestimated himself, he replied: "Yeah."
Green consolation
Still, there was consolation for Van Aert in the form of the green jersey.
Van Aert was already wearing the green jersey - or rather the green skinsuit - on stage 7, but it was only ‘on loan’ from Pogačar, who was leading the points classification but has the overall leader’s red jersey as his wardrobe priority.
Van Aert collected 20 points at the intermediate sprint with 25km remaining, and a further 15 for his third-place finish on the stage. That brought him to a total of 104 points, a slim but clear two points ahead of Pogačar.
"I hope it will not take as much energy every day as I did on this stage, but in the Vuelta you also need climbing legs to compete in the green jersey classification, so if the legs are there, then let's ride," Van Aert said of his challenge for green.
Competition, however, also comes from within Van Aert’s own team, with Matthew Brennan – winner of two stages so far – third in the points classification, albeit a fair bit further back on 60 points.
Brennan has been Visma’s chosen man for the bunch sprints and reduced-peloton sprints so far, so has the potential to add to his tally in big chunks if he keeps winning stages.
At the start of the stage, Pogačar suggested Visma need to make a decision on who they back as his main rival for green, but that looks almost certainly to be the domain of Van Aert, who has happily worked to set up Brennan in the sprints so far.
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