Wout van Aert rode harder than ever on the Finestre to help deliver Simon Yates to Giro d’Italia victory

Wout van Aert put in a “career best performance” in order to deliver Simon Yates to Giro d’Italia victory, according to his team’s head of performance.

Visma-Lease a Bike’s Mathieu Heijboer told Cycling Weekly on Monday that Van Aert’s showing on the Colle delles Finestre was proof of the unity in the team, as they powered towards Giro success.

After making the day’s breakaway on stage 20, the Classics specialist was ready and waiting to put in a huge turn in the valley road to pull Yates closer to the stage finish in Sestriere – Yates had already attacked on the slopes of the penultimate climb.

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Heijboer did not reveal any data from Van Aert’s ride, but said that it was like nothing he had seen before from the Belgian.

“Wout van Aert did a one hour career best performance actually,” Heijboer said as he reflected on Visma’s stage 20 display. “He never rode faster for one hour than on the Finestre. He did all of that to make it over the top so he could support Simon in the last 15 kilometres and I think that says it all.”

He added: “That togetherness and shared commitment, shared goal, is something we create in the preparation for the race and that has really paid off for us, especially in the last stage.”

Speaking on Monday, Yates’s former British Cycling mentor Keith Lambert told CW that he felt the Briton had ridden a “stealthy” race, enabling him to fly under the radar and keep himself in contention during a frenetic opening week, which closed off with a gravel stage into Siena.

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Heijboer agreed with the sentiment, reiterating that a strong showing from the entire team had enabled their man to achieve his goal.

He said: “Simon did a super good climb on the Finestre, but when you look at the Giro as a whole, I think as a team we really brought him in every time into a good position and he profited a lot from our other goals, like sprinting with Olav Kooij.

“We couldn’t complain about the luck we had in the stage to Slovenia when a lot of guys crashed, but it was the quality of our group as a team that kept us in front.”