Opinion: Every second counts as Wout van Aert proves himself a cut above the rest at the Tour de France

No one has dominated the recent history of the Tour de France in the same brutal fashion as Wout van Aert. In a way like you have never seen before, and in the yellow jersey no less, the Belgian ended a streak of three successive second places on Tuesday – a streak, lest you forget, that came off the back of consecutive victories in the final two stages of last year’s Tour.

Quite simply, that run of 1-1-2-2-2-1 makes Van Aert one of the modern greats – a rider certainly peerless in the peloton when it comes to anything and everything except actually winning the world’s biggest bike race.

Yes, Tadej Pogacar may well ride into the Parisian sunset with a third successive Tour title – and he may do so with some captivating performances in the mountains – but even he will not be able to match the consistency, panache and all-round threat of his Belgian counterpart, a rider who balances quite magnificently the dual aspects of personal ambition and teamwork.

Van Aert is so good at what he does that even in strengthening his own grip on both the yellow and green jerseys he paved the way for his teammates Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard in their own pursuit of cycling’s holy grail.

In his first Tour, Van Aert was part of Jumbo-Visma’s winning team time trial squad before winning a reduced bunch sprint in Albi. In his second Tour, he won two sprints. In his third, he pulled off cycling’s equivalent of football’s left foot-right foot-header perfect hat-trick: a TT win, a bunch sprint on the Champs-Elysees, and a solo mountain scalp over Mont Ventoux.

The Cote du Cap Blanc-Nez in the Pas de Calais may be a far cry from the Giant of Provence, but it’s a KOM on Strava that will probably remain in perpetuity under Van Aert’s control.

Van Aert’s victory on Tuesday came after Jumbo-Visma teammates Steven Kruijswijk, Nathan Van Hooydonck and Tiejs Benoot paved the way emphatically for their man in yellow on the sixth of final climb of the day. But the lone leader still had it all to go when going over the summit just ahead of Vinegaarde and Britain’s Adam Yates of Ineos Grenadiers.

In the man’s words himself, it was “ten kilometres of all-out suffering”. Suffering that, according to the Tour de France technology partner NTT, Van Aert endured at an average pace of 62kmh. For there are few riders who can turn themselves inside out in the same way as Van Aert – and perhaps no one after already putting in such a huge effort on the preceding climb.

“I have never seen a rider do that in the yellow jersey in the Tour de France,” said a shell-shocked Adam Blythe during The Breakaway. That’s because you weren’t around during the glory days of Eddy Merckx, Adam…

After all, Van Aert’s staggering record of finishing in the top three of 69% of his 26 race days so far this season is bordering on the Merckxian.

The only rider perhaps capable of producing similar exploits is the one rider noticeable by his absence on Tuesday: Mathieu van der Poel. Usually so aggressive in his riding, the swashbuckling Dutchman has had a rather subdued start to his second Tour since coming fifth in the opening time trial in Copenhagen.

It’s true that the Van der Poel we’re seeing in this Tour is nothing like the Van der Poel we saw during his debut Giro in May, where he seemed to ride off the front practically most days. The 27-year-old from Alpecin-Deceuninck may have won the Tour of Flanders in Van Aert’s absence earlier this season, but he’s clearly many years behind his old rival when it comes to his achievements and capabilities in Grand Tour stage racing.

But it’s also worth bearing in mind that Van der Poel may have targeted Wednesday’s stage over the cobbles of northern France as the day his Tour really begins.

“I get this feeling that the team is holding him back,” Blythe said of Van der Poel. “They’re holding him back for a stage that is such a gamble. He might get a double flat on the first section of cobbles and he’s wasted five days. For me, you can’t hold a guy like that back.”

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that Deceuninck-Alpecin – like Jumbo-Visma – have multiple cards to play at this Tour. No one could have expected Van Aert to do what he did on Tuesday on a stage where everyone expected the sprinters to contest for the win – as exemplified perfectly by the fact that it was Van der Poel’s teammate Jasper Philipsen who, in leading the field home for second place, erroneously felt he had won the stage.

“We were a bit far back and we couldn’t see Van Aert in the front,” Philipsen later said. “And I had a bad [radio] connection too. I thought I was sprinting for the win but then I saw him right in front of me when I crossed the finish line, so, yeah…”

Philipsen’s gaffe was music to the ears of Italy’s Alberto Bettiol, who was able to hand over the poisoned chalice to his colleague after making a similar blunder earlier this summer at the Tour de Suisse.

If there’s a lot at stake now for Wednesday’s mini-Roubaix-style stage for Van der Poel and the likes of Mads Pedersen, Stefan Kung and reigning Hell of the North winner Dylan Van Baarle, then the same cannot be said now for Van Aert. By ending his ‘losing’ run and picking up a seventh Tour stage win in Calais with such an unforgettable solo performance – off the back of an astonishing team effort – the Belgian superstar had made any pressure simply disappear.

The scary thing is that while sense dictates that Van Aert is likely to concede the yellow jersey on ramped gravel climb of La Super Planche des Belle Filles on Friday, the extra bonus seconds that he could well pick up by winning both the cobbles stage to Arenberg and the punchy uphill finale at Longwy may ensure he takes the yellow jersey beyond the second rest day.

And if he does that, then you can expect Van Aert doing his best on the brutal slopes of the Col du Granon in Stage 11 to ensure that it’s one of his teammates – Vingegaard or Roglic – who takes over control of the maillot jaune while he refocuses on a green jersey competition that he’s currently running away with.