{"id":671802,"date":"2026-01-03T19:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/671802\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T19:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:45:15","slug":"wout-van-aert-undergoes-successful-surgery-on-fractured-ankle-following-snowy-cyclo-cross-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/671802\/","title":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert undergoes successful surgery on fractured ankle following snowy cyclo-cross crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"09a3a761-455d-4c24-b9a1-e9300699cbea\"><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/wout-van-aert\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/wout-van-aert\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wout van Aert<\/a> has undergone successful surgery on the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/teams-riders\/his-ankle-is-the-most-painful-final-wout-van-aert-cyclo-cross-battle-with-mathieu-van-der-poel-at-risk-after-belgians-crash-in-mol\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/teams-riders\/his-ankle-is-the-most-painful-final-wout-van-aert-cyclo-cross-battle-with-mathieu-van-der-poel-at-risk-after-belgians-crash-in-mol\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fractured ankle he sustained in a crash<\/a> during the snowy Exact Cross in Mol on Friday, his Visma-Lease a Bike team have announced.<\/p>\n<p>The Belgian star made his cyclo-cross return last month, taking part in five races as part of his limited season schedule. However, his 2026 got off to a disastrous start in Mol as he crashed hard while battling eternal rival Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) for the race victory.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" data-url=\"\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"09a3a761-455d-4c24-b9a1-e9300699cbea-2\" class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Van Aert hit the ground on a paved section of the course and soon pulled out of the race with a bleeding knee. Later on Friday, Visma-Lease a Bike announced that he had sustained a sprained ankle and a &#8220;small fracture&#8221; in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The crash and injury mean that his &#8216;cross season is already over, though with his surgery coming a day later, it means Van Aert can quickly turn his focus to recovering for the upcoming road season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Van Aert underwent surgery in Herentals, Belgium, though it&#8217;s unclear exactly how long a full recovery will take.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#8220;The surgery was successful,&#8221; Visma-Lease a Bike announced on Saturday morning. &#8220;Wout will now begin his recovery.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet hawk-ignore\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The surgery was successful. Wout will now begin his recovery.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2007419606902988966\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2007419606902988966\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"noopener\">January 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert has undergone successful surgery on the fractured ankle he sustained in a crash during the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-671802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115832889203749537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}