Just as doubts started to creep in about Wout van Aert's form for the upcoming Tour de France, he steadied the ship by winning the sprint from the bunch on stage 4 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The only problem, though, was that 10 riders from the day's breakaway had finished four seconds before him and taken the stage victory.
But after early struggles on stages 1 and 3, where he failed to contribute much to Visma's team time trial win, Van Aert could take confidence from his 11th place, enjoying the full commitment from his teammates in the chase, albeit coming up short.
"I felt good in the final and did a good sprint. I think I won the sprint from the bunch, but a few guys stayed in front, so it's always unfortunate, for us at least. But we raced for it, and I'm happy with that," said Van Aert at the finish.
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He laughed at the question of whether Wout van Aert is back, saying, "I don't know, but [I know] that the team is going really well, and we didn't need to show that again.
"[Tuesday] was quite the example, me dropping out so early, then Ben [Tulett] having a flat, and still winning that team time trial, that's pretty insane, so if you have these guys pulling for you, you want to do our very best. That's what I did, but we came up just short."
The 12-rider break formed after a breathless 60km fight to get up the road, and only crested the final climb with a 1:30 advantage. But with downhill roads and windy, long straights leading the race to the finish, the 10 who remained were just able to hold off the charge from Visma and several sprint teams behind.
It was always Visma's plan to chase for the Belgian, with him telling Sporza that "With a heavy heart, I asked to have faith in me. I got the feeling that they were all on board. Things go a little better when you gain the trust of those men."
With his morale up despite the result, the signs are now pointing in the right direction for the Tour, which starts on July 4. But the work is far from done, Van Aert noting how stage 4 was the easiest route they had faced so far at the renamed Dauphiné.
"From the sprint, I take away some confidence, of course. It was a good sprint from me, and unfortunately, it was not for the win," he told CyclingPro on the morning of stage 5.
"I think the first two days were not easy for me, and also yesterday, I mean, it was nice to be there, but it was also the easiest stage so far. So I still need to improve a lot for the coming months, and I'm here to work for that every day.
"It's pretty important that I always step up pretty much after a hard week like this, and I'm hoping for the same outcome on this occasion"
Van Aert has his best and only remaining chance to end this race with a victory on Thursday's stage to Parc des Oiseaux Villars-les-Dombes, over the flattest route of the weekend, and after the morale boost of yesterday.
"Honestly, with the longer flat stretch in the end, I think it's a bigger chance that it's controllable, " he said. "But still racing with the same peloton, and in a tough race like this one, there's always a bit of a lag for sprinting teams, so it will be again difficult to get the right group on the road."
He only has one victory so far this season, though that was at Paris-Roubaix. Even so, a stage win would be a huge confidence boost for him and the team that one of their superstars is firing on all cylinders ahead of his eighth Tour de France.
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