Wout van Aert says he’s unsure of targeting the Tour of Britain general classification after dominating the opening stage.
The Belgian superstar soared to stage victory in Bodmin, Cornwall, as he marked world champion Julian Alaphilippe and sprinted clear to take the honours and the leader’s jersey.
Van Aert, racing for Jumbo-Visma, is fine-tuning his form ahead of the World Championships in Belgium later this month, but is unsure if he will be able to target GC in the British stage race.
Speaking after his victory, the 26-year-old said: “Being here it was almost overwhelming seeing the amount if crowds at the side of the roads, we have been missing this in the last two years and it’s nice to see people outside again and especially in a crowd together, it’s nice to see people are so crazy about cycling, it makes it more beautiful when we win.
“It was a tough stage. It was good for me to adapt to these kind of roads and to get used to them. The stage was controlled and yeah racing, high speeds and obviously on a first day of a race everybody is still fresh so it was a big battle to be at the front for the sprint. My teammates helped me secure a good position and I think I did the right timing in the sprint.”
If Van Aert wants to be in with a chance at the GC, his team need to put in a strong performance in the team time trial on stage three, over 18.2km from Llandeilo to the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Camarthenshire.
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On his overall hopes, Van Aert said: “The team time-trial is obviously a really important event here for the reputation the team has in time trials. It will be important for the GC as well and I think on stage four we have the queen stage with a super hard finish so I’m definitely focussing on that one, and then afterwards we’ll see where my position is in the GC before the last four stages.
“It's a really important race and a nice race to do but on the other hand I’m here to try and race into the best legs possible going into the Worlds. We’ll see after stage four what’s good and what’s possible.”
