On a final stage of the Tour de France designed for a rider like Wout van Aert to win on, it was indeed Wout van Aert who won. The Belgian conquered the punchy course, dropping the world champion and yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar in the process, and soloed to victory, the second time in his career he has won in Paris.
Few would begrudge the Belgian the victory, given the amount of times he has tried to make something happen at this Tour, or the amount of work he has put in for his team leader, Jonas Vingegaard.
The Belgian was part of a select group of five, including his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Matteo Jorgenson and Pogačar, and he then attacked the final time the race went up Montmartre, soloing to the win with 6.4km to go.
However, while it was clear to the receptive crowd at the end of the race that Van Aert would win on the Champs-Élysées, he himself was not aware that the victory was on until it was almost over.
"Today was a really confusing final kilometres, because I had no idea if I had a big gap or not," he explained post-stage. "The radio was just noisy and there was too much screaming going on. It was a weird feeling because I only realised in the final straight that I had such a big margin. I wasn’t prepared for these emotions."
Emotions there were, emotions at his 10th stage win, emotions that Visma have yet again had a good Tour despite missing out on the general classification to Pogačar, emotions that he still has it to duke it out with the very best.
"It was always my plan to attack on the final climb," Van Aert confirmed. "Of course, I thought it would be a bigger group going, so on the last lap I reconsidered, but especially because I still had Matteo there I could try it, and if it didn't work out we could come together and play our cards differently. I started the climb in the wheel of Tadej, but it was always the plan to attack myself."
The Montmartre circuit provoked opinion, but it was clearly the perfect launchpad for Van Aert to make it happen again at the Tour. There might be no Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix victory yet, but there is another win at the biggest race of them all.
"I did enjoy the final because it was quite selective," he said of the course. "It was pretty quickly a small group in the front, and it's how it should be . The guys that want to race can take the risks. If the GC times weren’t taken it’s impossible to create a safe race on this certain. If you’re 100th you’re already two minutes behind because it’s so technical. It’s still an exciting race to watch I think."
