Wout van Aert has received a few servants from Jumbo-Visma in his hunt for the green jersey, but the Belgian does not have to count on support for defending the yellow jersey, sports leaders Grischa Niermann and Frans Maassen tell respectively. The Telegraph and L’Equipe†
Van Aert took yellow on day two of the Tour, by finishing second in a bunch sprint. He kept the leader’s jersey and thus has the yellow and green in his hands after three days. All this thanks to a striking constant, as Van Aert finished second three times in three days. “Of course you would prefer to win three times, but it is great that Wout is achieving this,” said Niermann.
Jumbo-Visma proud of constant Van Aert
At Jumbo-Visma they were not counting on only victories, with strong sprinters at the start. In his green mission, Van Aert has done a golden job. “With those second places, he has scored a lot of points and is in excellent shape. Of course he also hopes for a stage win, and there are still opportunities for that.’
At Jumbo-Visma, however, the focus on days four and five is increasingly shifting towards the leaders Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard. They have encountered nothing so far, but have to survive the cobblestones of Roubaix on Wednesday. ‘In the fourth stage along the coast and in the fifth stage over the cobblestones I see bears on the road, but there are also opportunities. We are going to see how we can send it our way’, says Niermann.
Van Aert must lead Roglic and Vingegaard on the cobblestones
Maassen also sees those bears and emphasizes that Van Aert may be alone at times. “Our strategy has been clear for a long time. We knew that the chance of yellow with Wout in the first days was great and we are happy about that. We’re not going to defend that jersey, we didn’t build our team for that. However proud we are of the yellow jersey, and although this has been Wout’s dream for a long time, we find ourselves in an unusual situation, in which it will be up to the yellow jersey wearer himself to defend the yellow.’
This means that in the cobblestone stage on Wednesday all eyes will be on Roglic and Vingegaard, Christophe Laporte agrees. ‘The role of Nathan (Van Hooydonck, ed.), Tiesj (Benoot, ed.), Wout and myself is to race at the front all day long and to protect our leaders and make room for them.’
