Van Aert finishes a season with very bad luck

The worst predictions for Wout van Aert are confirmed after the fall he suffered in stage 16 of La Vuelta 2024 while descending the Collada Llomena on the way to Lagos de Covadonga. The wound on his right knee, already looking bad on television, in fact, led him to abandon and has also led him to make the decision to end his season to recover properly, thus giving up on the Zurich World Championship where he had hoped to straighten out a season marked by falls.

End to a disastrous season for Wout van Aert after his crash in La Vuelta 2024

Although the first medical statement made by Visma-Lease a Bike at night, after the stage of Lagos de Covadonga in which Wout van Aert was forced to abandon after a hard crash, a statement that seemed hopeful as no fractures were detected in the medical examinations and the only problem was a deep wound on the right knee.

Information that raised hopes of being able to count on the presence of Wout van Aert in the World Championship to be held from September 22 to 29 in Zurich and, perhaps, also in another of the events on the Belgian's agenda such as the European Championship to be held from September 11 to 15 in Limburg.

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However, as it already looked disturbing at first sight, the wound on the knee is quite ugly and deep, in fact, it is requiring treatment with intravenous antibiotics to avoid complications in the form of infection and keeps Wout van Aert in a hospital in Belgium, where he traveled after his withdrawal.

With this scenario, both the team and the cyclist have decided not to compete anymore this season and focus on a good recovery and already plan the next campaign, which presumably will start in December in cyclocross.

An undesired end to a campaign in which Wout van Aert had high hopes, even reducing his participation in cyclocross to arrive at the spring classics with all guarantees seeking his long-awaited victory in one or both of the cobblestone monuments: Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. However, a hard fall in Dwars door Vlaanderen, the last competition before the Tour of Flanders, left him unable to compete in these races, consequences that even made him give up his debut in the Giro d'Italia.

The Visma-Lease a Bike cyclist then focused on the Olympic Games, another of his major goals for 2024, where he managed to win a bronze medal in the time trial. Wout van Aert then arrived at La Vuelta a España 2024, a race in which he was also making his debut and where we saw the offensive and ambitious cyclist of previous seasons once again. Almost a fixture in every breakaway and regaining his sprinting form, he managed to achieve 3 stage victories, practically securing the green jersey for the points classification and also starting to consider the mountain jersey, which is why we continued to see him in breakaways like the one he was part of at the time of the fall that ended his season.