Unfinished business or a new dimension? Wout van Aert targets Gravel World Championships

When Wout van Aert won his first-ever gravel race at Houffalize with a nine minute advantage on the opposition, the crushing triumph unleashed a wave of speculation about what he might well achieve two months later in the Gravel World Championships.

Van Aert’s ability to shine on all kinds of terrain and in all kinds of circumstances has been evident time and again. And that may well be what matters the most on Sunday.

Following Houffalize, Van Aert's overall victory at the Tour of Britain didn't only showcase his GC talents and even his sprint leadout skills. Van Aert also secured a fifth place in the World Championships time trial in Glasgow, while his ability at scooping up one-day triumphs was evident as recently as the Coppa Bernocchi in Italy on Monday.

Van Aert’s 2023 road season has already confirmed him as cycling’s ‘man who can do everything.’  And that's not even counting the Classics triumphs, Tour de France support role and cyclo-cross success that preceded this summer.

Van Aert recognised after his Houffalize win that the level of competition will be on a much higher level in Italy.

Earlier this week Het Nieuwsblad described Van Aert as the favourite for Sunday, but the Belgian's inexperience at top-level gravel racing can’t be ignored.

The second edition of the UCI Gravel World Championships on Sunday will reveal an extra dimension to Van Aert's many talents and perhaps give him a world title after so many second places.

His stated goals for 2023 were the Road World Championships and adding a second Monument win to his 2020 Milan-San Remo title. All of those targets have ended in sometimes painfully narrow misses. So, too, did his bid for a fourth World Cyclo-Cross Championships title this February, when a thrilling duel with Mathieu Van Der Poel concluded with the closest of defeats. 

Those losses are starting to add up, even for a rider with Van Aert's palmares and even allowing for his E3 Harelbeke win in March. In fact, this week L'Equipe even went as far as to describe Van Aert's 2023 campaign as 'a season to forget.'

A rainbow jersey would be something to remember. 

Back to his roots

Interestingly, after his failure to secure Paris-Roubaix earlier this year, Van Aert headed off-road for a break from racing. 

In April he headed back to France for a 300-kilometre two-day gravel ride through the Champagne region -  the same part of the world, as it happens, where the Tour de France will be heading next summer for its own gravel stage.

Van Aert is a novice at gravel racing but boasts an excellent record in the racing he has done off-road in Italy. 

Apart from being a winner of Strade Bianche in 2020, Van Aert has never finished lower than fourth in his four participations in the iconic Italian race.

Gravel riding has long formed part of Van Aert’s two-wheeled DNA and in a recent interview with Het Nieuwsblad, he revealed that by taking part in the Gravel World Championships and other speciality events, he was actually heading back to his roots.

“I've actually been riding on gravel since I was a kid, when I used to do long-distance rides with my cyclocross bike,” he said.

“However, I started to appreciate it [more] during the pandemic, it allowed me to discover new routes and roads during training. I followed the rapid rise of the sport closely.

“This year I was looking for a goal for the end of the season, and the Gravel World Championships seemed the most interesting to me.”

The emotional appeal of gravel became apparent when he posted the Houffalize ride to Strava calling the ride: “When I grow up I want to be a gravel racer.” 

One last lesson has to be taken from Houffalize regarding Van Aert:  this year’s Gravel Worlds may feature a lot of climbing - twice as much as in 2022 and with a 3.9 kilometre ascent towards the finish - but it shouldn’t present a problem. The course in Houffalize also featured no less than 2,000 metres of vertical climbing, on both gravel and dirt-surfaced roads.

Factor in Van Aert’s win at the Coppa Bernocchi and at a time of the season when many road riders are beginning to fade physically, it’s clear he should be more than able to go the distance and fight for victory.  

His performance at Gran Piemonte, where he was unable to handle a steep mid-race climb, left something to be desired but to judge by his post-race comments, it sounded more like a glitch in the system rather than a serious drop in form.

“I had the feeling the whole day we were a bit in trouble,” Van Aert said, “but we needed to pace hard on the first climbs, then on the long steep climb it was just too hard for me.”

Immediately after Gran Piemonte, Van Aert headed to the Veneto region to check out the UCI Gravel World Championship course.

He remained upbeat about his form and hid chances. 

“It's a new race, a completely different one and I’m looking forward to that.”

It’s a sign of how seriously he’s taking the challenge and how much he wants the rainbow jersey.