July 25, 2025. Montmartre, Paris. The final stage of the 2025 Tour de France, and Wout van Aert’s back tire skids over cobbles that are black and slick like ice. Each one rattles the joints he worked all winter to rebuild. There is one kilometre left, and Tadej Pogacar is behind him. By how far, he wonders?

His team boss is in his ear, telling him that the yellow jersey is nowhere near, to take in the moment, but Van Aert cannot hear him but for the roar and fuzz of blood in the back of his throat, on the edge of his vision.

“On television, it always looks pretty clear what’s going on,” Van Aert says. “But in the moment itself, I could not hear anything. At points, on parallel sections, I was passing groups and they were shouting on their radio to support me. But every time the radio was open I just thought, f***, they are there, I couldn’t look back properly with the rain and motos behind me. It was only on the final straight that I could believe I was so far in front.”

Van Aert was a lone figure coming down the Champs-Élysées. Set against the hulking Arc de Triomphe, through the rain, he resembles a matchstick man riding down his sport’s largest stage.

Fifty metres before reaching the line, he freewheels, arms down by his side, exhausted. This is what it takes to be the only man in two years to drop Pogacar on a climb.

Then he raises both hands, flashes his fingers, before bringing his right fist down on the bars of his bike, the reverberation rippling down the tendons of his forearms. Standing on his pedals, a web of scarring on his knee is visible. This is more than just happiness.

“I had this salute in my head for a while,” Van Aert explains for the first time. “After I was injured, I had a goal. I just wanted to show that I’m still there, that I can be among the best riders. I wanted to show I’m still standing. And so I went up on the pedals as I went over the finish. That’s that. There.”

Van Aert celebrates a cathartic victory in the final stage of the 2025 Tour de France (DIRK WAEM/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)

Three months later, Van Aert is in Los Angeles, thinking back to that day. The Californian winter sun is a long way from the mud-filled tracks of Belgian cyclocross where the 31-year-old made his name.

He is out here on the west coast with Visma-Lease a Bike, visiting the Dutch team’s bike manufacturer, Cervelo. Two days earlier, some 250 fans joined him for a rollout, places on the ride selling out within just two hours.

“Because we don’t have any big races in the US left on the schedule, you might think it was a sport that has been completely forgotten,” he says. “But once you’re here, you feel that’s the complete opposite.”

A day later, he is hosted by legendary basketball star Reggie Miller, a mountain biking obsessive who previously sat on the board of directors for USA Cycling. In the gym, shooting free throws, the two chat about his career, retirement, and Miller’s hopes of commentating on the Tour de France, the former shooting guard already working for NBC as part of their NBA coverage.

“Basketball games take a long time with all the timeouts, but there wasn’t a boring moment for the whole evening,” he says of his experience watching the LA Lakers play the San Antonio Spurs. “You can always learn from other sports. In general, how the NBA is as a federation, it’s completely different to what we have in cycling. The financial system they have, that is something we should try and learn from, even though it will be really hard to change that.”

Van Aert also wants to see the WorldTour return to the region. Though he hopes to come back soon to compete in Kansas’ Unbound gravel race, since the last Tour of California six years ago, the US has lacked a race that attracts the road discipline’s biggest stars.

“I hope at some point that we have a bigger American circuit,” he says. “It’s a big market, and basically all the material sponsors we have, they have their headquarters or at least offices here. Cycling is something here, and it’s a big shame that we don’t use this platform to show off on the highest level.

“Logistically, I don’t really think it’s an excuse not to organise it, because teams are used to having races overseas. So your main problem is that the calendar is so packed already that I cannot point to a moment where it would perfectly fit. But that’s always tricky.”

Van Aert knows these challenges. He finished racing in September, citing the need “not to overdo it”, after an exhausting season in which he had something to prove, not least to himself. In many ways, he admits openly, this was one of the toughest periods of his career.

“Last year I had a huge crash already at the (2024) Dwars door Vlaanderen, so it was a big comeback already to be ready for the Tour de France and the rest of the season,” he explains. “Eventually, at the Vuelta, I found my best legs again, was really at my top level, and could win some nice races. I felt like: ‘Finally, I’m back.’ And then I crashed out of the Vuelta.”

On stage 16, wearing the green jersey as leader of the points classification, Van Aert fell on a descent. He suffered a long, deep cut to his knee, exiting the race in shock. As well as his crash earlier in 2024, it brought back more memories, of a career-threatening leg wound suffered in a time trial at the 2019 Tour de France.

Van Aert suffered a serious knee injury at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana (Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

“It was just too quick after the injury before,” he remembers. “I realised it was going to be exactly the same again. It was too much. I think every athlete gets used to being injured and coming back, but having these one after the other made me think about doing all this recovery again and then crashing out next year. Am I willing to do that over and over again? That was a mental struggle.

“When you’re younger, when you’re 20 years old, you don’t even really think that you’ve been crashing. It’s not even in the back of your mind. But then after a couple of injuries, you understand what it’s like. It’s normal that you carry this with you. Every injury gets more complicated, and it doesn’t help when you get a family and have children.

“I didn’t have any holiday last winter because I was pushing myself to come back as soon as possible. I had a really good Classics season, but I missed out on any victories, just had a few really pretty losses. So I was missing this final confirmation, almost, of being back.”

It came, eventually, in the picturesque walled city of Siena, outsprinting pink jersey contender Isaac del Toro up the fortress’s cobbled ramp to win stage nine of the Giro d’Italia. Van Aert crossed the line, and fell into his wife Sarah’s arms.

“The start of the race was complicated for me, especially being a bit sick before,” he remembers, smiling. “So with all these things summed up, it was a bit more emotional than usual. If I win a Grand Tour stage next season, it will be really cool, but a different experience for sure.”

Van Aert crosses the line in Siene to win stage nine of the 2025 Giro d’Italia (LUCA BETTINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Van Aert carries two records of his career: one is the palmares on his shelf, the other is the scars on his body. In some sports, those are metaphorical, in cycling, they are literal. How does he feel when he sees them?

“Luckily, a lot of my scars are covered when I wear cycling kit, because, unfortunately, there are a lot of them,” he says. “The knee looks pretty bad. And that makes it a little more difficult, because every time you look down, it reminds you of what happened before.”

He pauses. “I’m not really seeing it and dramatically thinking: ‘Wow, look at me, I’m proud’. Sometimes it’s harsh because it’s there every moment of the day.”

But at the Giro, his spring continued to improve. Van Aert was key to Simon Yates’ raid on the Colle delle Finestre, producing his best ever hour-long power numbers from the breakaway to summit the climb before his team leader, before pacing him down the valley and into the pink jersey.

The year’s main aim was to reproduce it at the Tour de France, with Van Aert riding in support of Jonas Vingegaard in his era-defining rivalry with Pogacar. In the weeks leading up to the race, Visma-Lease a Bike bosses impressed the importance of style upon their squad.

“We want to write sports history,” said their head of coaching, Jacco Verhaeren. “Our goal is always to win, but we can give a lot of inspiration in many different ways as well.”

Van Aert is invaluable as a Grand Tour superdomestique, as Simon Yates discovered at the 2025 Giro (LUCA BETTINI/AFP via Getty Images)

In the end, Pogacar was, by a distance, the strongest rider — seizing yellow decisively on the Hautacam on stage 12. Nevertheless, Van Aert was proud of Visma’s performance, particularly the manner in which they rode so proactively as aggressors.

“A couple of years ago, the mindset was more related to the immediate results,” he explains. “After winning the Tour de France twice, I think everybody realised that it was so special because of how we did it — Jonas in yellow, I was winning the green jersey. Of course, people were talking about the victory, but perhaps even more about how we rode as a team.

“(This year) we attacked the race, and had a plan for every crucial stage. But as a team, we realised it was more valuable to ride in this way, rather than just point it out as: ‘We want to achieve 80 victories this year,’ or whatever. Our goal to make sports history evolved as a team, it’s part of our DNA.”

Van Aert’s win on Montmartre embodied that spirit — a 21st stage which already, in the Tour’s long annals, will go down as a modern classic, the race passing up and over the famous basilica for the first time. Pogacar, Van Aert, and the Belgian’s teammate Matteo Jorgenson were part of a six-strong group who slipped away from the peloton entering the final cobbled ascent.

“Going into the final lap with six guys was a surprise,” Van Aert remembers. “And to have Tadej in this group was also a surprise, because I thought he would avoid the risks and bring the yellow jersey home in a safe way. Chapeau to him to race for it. And that made my victory so much bigger, because he was willing to do the effort one more time.

“Having Matteo there in the last lap was a huge benefit. We talked through the radio to race aggressively before Montmartre so the other guys would have to chase a few times, or even to get Matteo up the road himself. My plan was to attack on Montmartre, I had this plan in my head before the race and I wanted to execute it. The first two ascents, I felt like I could push a bit harder than we were, so my confidence was growing.

“But still, to drop Tadej was something exceptional. I was full effort, just trying to go fast to the finish. It was a super nice moment across the line, but it was only a few days later that I realised it had a big impact. Literally hundreds of people reached out over the next hours and days with the story of how they experienced it.”

Van Aert pulls clear of Tadej Pogacar on the final stage of the 2025 Tour de France (POOL GARNIER ETIENNE/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)

Part of Van Aert’s uniqueness as a rider is his inability to be characterised; capable of being amongst the sport’s best classics riders, its best sprinters, and its best domestiques. Does he get more joy from these moments, riding alone down the Champs-Élysées, winning Milan-San Remo (as he did in 2020), or from the team victories, delivering Vingegaard yellow, or Yates pink?

“That’s what’s nice about road-racing,” he replies. “One day you’re the leader, but on another you can also be valuable for the team, and win on a terrain where you can’t win yourself. So winning as a team gives me a lot of special feelings, but it’s also fair to say that there’s nothing like winning yourself. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do as a teammate without my own chances, if that makes sense. Both things motivate me, for sure. I want opportunities both ways.”

Van Aert has ridden for several team leaders — Vingegaard, Jorgensen, Primoz Roglic — and describes them all differently.

“Some are really vocal and take the lead in all the meetings, and others are the complete opposite,” he explains. “What is most important is that the team can create an atmosphere where everyone can be themselves and perform, it’s up to the others to deal with those personalities, just like people have to deal with how I am.” And how are you?

“I think I’m really a demanding person,” Van Aert replies instantly. “Both for myself and for the people around me. I expect everyone to be dialled in and everything to be planned as well as possible, so that can be difficult for more chaotic people, or people who like to go with the flow. But I hope people also say I’m grateful. I do believe I am.”

That self-demanding nature, as it is with so many elite sportspeople, is paradoxical — the detail both makes them a champion and ratchets up the pressure. Van Aert is open about the two remaining goals for his career — winning both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Both races are central to the mythology of Flemish cycling; it is a surprise Van Aert has reached his thirties without winning either.

“I feel already that I’ve been chasing them my whole career,” he says. “But I’m still chasing them. They would be the cherry on the cake. They would mean the world to me.

“At some point, with the injuries and the setbacks, I swapped more to the idea of taking it a bit more easy, to avoid risks or danger, to take an easier schedule, to change goals. But I hated the races when I wasn’t on my level. I realised that I was in cycling to be the best version of myself and to have no regrets afterwards.”

Van Aert, pictured here during the 2021 edition, still has designs on Paris-Roubaix (ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images)

During the early years of his career, he admits, the significance of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix weighed heavily. Cyclists have been named Belgian Sportsman of the Year for its past six editions, including Van Aert twice.

“As a Belgian, of course it’s pretty inspiring to watch throughout your childhood,” he says. “They’re the biggest, the best races of the year, happening so close by. It gives me extra motivation. But, yeah, it’s so big in our country that the pressure is always there. In my case, I’ve been there now for two years with some kind of status to be the biggest favourite, at least, and then the pressure is even more because I’m Belgian. That can be difficult to deal with.

“It’s probably something that gets easier over time. Every experience gives you new insight, so I guess it doesn’t affect my performance any more than it maybe would do when I was younger. Especially in cyclocross, in the early days, I could not really perform at championships because I was too nervous. I wasn’t really doing it for myself anymore, before I believed I had to win to show people, let’s say. Then the pressure got even bigger on road cycling.”

Our conversation wanders to the wider Belgian cycling scene. Despite riding for Visma-Lease a Bike, across the Dutch border, Van Aert has still been paying close attention to some of the issues affecting his home country.

Several Belgian WorldTour teams are struggling financially, with Lotto and Intermarche-Wanty, two of the biggest teams, forced into a messy merger to survive. Another, Alpecin–Deceuninck, home of his great rival Mathieu van der Poel, is still lacking a title sponsor for next season, threatening their survival. Sitting in Los Angeles, Van Aert believes further American involvement in the sport could help its long-term sustainability.

“We’ve always had a lot of good teams for such a small country, so maybe there was an imbalance,” he says. “But on the other hand, there is a big market. It should not be like it’s going now, with teams struggling to find sponsors or even disappearing. There are only very few teams who have big international sponsors.

“A team like Red Bull, with such a big brand investing in cycling, that’s what I dream of in the future to see these kinds of sponsors coming to our sport. Obviously, I do believe that we have everything to give a lot of value to these brands, and it would be really good to have more American-based brands. They have more money to put into our sport. And I hope we won’t read any more stories of this struggling like we’ve had over the past couple of months.”