All photos were taken from the Jumbo-Visma social media page (Facebook) with thanks ( Dank U well Jumbo-Visma)
What a day in the Tour de France today…and a sweet one as well…As a Belgian in the 70ties, we had been spoiled with TDF overall wins, mountain stage wins, sprint wins, etc… It is already 45 years ago now we won the race and it looks like we have to wait a bit longer…but days like today make you hopeful for the future. The Belgian Champ Wout is just special…he is a CX Champ, a road champ, MTB champ, TT expert, and a hell of a sprinter…Add a few classic’s to his many wins for a good measure and you have a young fellow with a superhero status…and rightly so!! Today he shows any doubter to reboot…he is the king of Mount Ventoux this year, he lost nearly half of his team Jumbo-Visma in the first week, (today his teammate Tony Martin crashed and had to retire to even make it worse. Tony has been taken to hospital and hopefully the damage is not too bad) But then Wout single-handed took over the stage…been in the break of the day, he left his rivals behind and went solo over the beast called Ventoux (which had to be climbed twice) and stayed away…his teammate Jonas Vingegaard was in the company of leader Tadej Pogocar a few minutes down and slipped away on the last climb of the Ventoux, Tadej powerless to react on the climb but hauled back in the 22km downhill section towards the finish line …Van Aert had a minute cushion during that decent and with speeds close to the 90km an hour, his skills of bike handling also a great help and advantage…he has just done it and won this epic stage…whatever happens now…he will have a hero’s welcome in 12 days time…just magic from the pocket-rocket…Well done Wout…proficiat jongen…zo trots om een belg te zijn in tijden zoals vandaag! (so proud to be a Belgian at times like this) Dan Martin (ISN) was in the original break but had to let go, he scored max points in one of the first climbs and soon after blew up…he finished 24 minutes down to the winner and hopefully gives it another go later this week!
