Wout van Aert cherishes 'priceless' Paris Tour de France win despite putting Olympic flight in jeopardy

(Image credit: Getty)

By Jonny Long 2021-07-18T18:35:05Z

Wout van Aert not only disrupted what would have been a fairytale finish to Mark Cavendish's comeback Tour de France, the Manx sprinter needing one more win to take him to a record-breaking 35 stage wins, but the Belgian national champion may have also put a spanner in the works of his own travel plans.

Like many other riders, Van Aert was planning on taking a flight out to Tokyo for the upcoming Olympic Games a mere four hours after finishing on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and now faces a rush to get through the ceremonial duties that come with winning a Tour stage in order to get to Charles de Gaulle airport in time.

"I guess I've put myself in trouble because I've got to catch a flight tonight and all these interviews will take a while I guess. We'll see if I can get there," Van Aert said after the finish.

Should he make it, he'll have the whole long-haul flight to let what he's achieved this Tour sink in. Victory on the Mont Ventoux stage, the stage 20 time trial won and now victorious on the Champs-Élysées. The last rider to achieve wins on the flat, in the mountains and against the clock in the same Tour was Bernard Hinault in 1979, a feat also accomplished by Eddy Merckx a few years earlier.

>>> Meet Jonas Vingegaard: Inside the early fish market mornings and a ‘Great Danish Bake Off’ star for a mother-in-law

"No actually not, this Tour has just been amazing," Van Aert said as to whether he could believe he'd just won in Paris. "[This Tour has] been such a rollercoaster, but to finish it off like this, phwoar.

"It's definitely not a pity I went for it today because a victory like this is priceless. Thanks to my incredible, small team [only four Jumbo-Visma riders have finished the race] and Mike Teunissen delivered me in perfect position."

Van Aert says that the altered finish line, having been moved further up out of the corner, gave riders like him a better chance of taking the victory.

"There was more chance for a team like us to still come up in the corner and I was fully confident that Mikey was going to deliver me in the right position," Van Aert explained. "I just had to hold his wheel and it was just a world-class lead out today, hats off [to him]."

Jonny Long

Hi. I'm Cycling Weekly's Weekend Editor. I like writing offbeat features and eating too much bread when working out on the road at bike races.

Before joining Cycling Weekly I worked at The Tab and I've also written for Vice, Time Out, and worked freelance for The Telegraph (I know, but I needed the money at the time so let me live).

I also worked for ITV Cycling between 2011-2018 on their Tour de France and Vuelta a España coverage. Sometimes I'd be helping the producers make the programme and other times I'd be getting the lunches. Just in case you were wondering - Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen had the same ham sandwich every day, it was great.