Wout van Aert’s (Jumbo-Visma) time in yellow came to an end on the road to Longwy, a stage where the peloton decided that he’d had enough time in the spotlight and moved to chase down the lone figure of the yellow jersey defying a main bunch of the world’s best cyclists.
We've seen riders establish dominance, we've seen riders with moments where you wonder, just how good are they? What we haven't seen is a rider do it consistently against the best in the world in each specialisation on the biggest stage in cycling, the Tour de France.
He has spent the opening days time-trialling with the world and Olympic champions, sprinting with the fastest men on two wheels, out-climbing everyone, saving his general classification rider over the cobbles and then coming close to holding off the entire peloton in the breakaway. It has been an odyssey of impressive performances for the Belgian star, in my opinion the best in recent decades in yellow at the start of the Tour de France.
The obvious starting point is his Stage 4 win, blowing away the best climbers in the race with an explosive attack that none could follow and holding off the charging bunch solo to win in style. But it's really the way that he has done it in such style, not taking the easy or selfish way.
That’s reflected by the impetuous fashion that he forced clear the move in the early stages of Stage 6, a day where most teams wanted to slip a rider into the breakaway and have the rest of the stage off as one of recovery after a hard day for many on the cobbles.
A yellow jersey in the breakaway is rare enough, and after he had dropped Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo) and Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech) it was just the yellow jersey on the roads of northern France going solo. Unfortunately for van Aert, that just meant that there was every incentive for all the other teams in the race to chase him down.
Bear in mind that it wasn’t necessary for him to go in the move in the first place, he would have been the favourite to win from the peloton, but it was another chance for a ridiculous performance that would shock the cycling world.
It looked like it might even happen, but the catch came after a very hard chase, which saw the average speed of the race soar to well over the 44 km/hr maximum expected by organisers, instead a final mark of 49.38 km/hr was reached, albeit one helped by a persistent tailwind.
Van Aert eventually paid for his relentless pace-making when the peloton eventually dragged him back, dropped nearly immediately, finishing well down on the stage and ceding the yellow jersey. The eventual stage winner and new yellow jersey holder, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) spoke of his amazement at van Aert’s performance.
“The first two hours, it was so crazy, the strongest guy went in the breakaway,” said Pogačar of van Aert. “A lot of the guys pulling in the peloton, all of my team as well. I was thinking he would come to the finish, but in the end the peloton was stronger.”
Another more colourful and perhaps accurate representation of the sheer effrontery of van Aert’s confidence that he could force his way to another win was from Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers).
“He was playing with our balls… he’s taking the piss isn’t he? I really don’t know what to say,” said Pidcock on van Aert.
The 27-year-old superstar looked happy as he mounted the podium as the green jersey wearer, a classification in which he holds a very healthy lead. If the first six stages and past Tour de France performances have been anything to go by, it shouldn’t be too long until we something special again from van Aert.
"You wouldn’t know this race goes for another two and a half weeks by watching Wout van Aert, he has been in everything,” said Simon Gerrans, SBS commentator of van Aert’s performance.
In the past these types of performances have been finite, the pure climbers taking over in the mountains. Van Aert, however, seems determined to try and break as many rules as possible at this Tour de France.
To acknowledge van Aert's place in history as the greatest, at least in Tours de France within recent decades, a quick run over the champions that have gone about their Tours in similar fashion.
Julian Alaphilippe had impressive starts in 2019, 2020 and 2021, but those were built on single stage wins, with his biggest other contribution the controversy as he accepted a bidon after 20 kilometres to go and was penalised enough time to see him drop out of the race lead. Of course, Alaphilippe jumped back into yellow in 2019 to cling to the lead deep into the race.
Other notables include Mathieu van der Poel, Greg van Avermaet and Thor Hushovd, who were all very active, but almost purely on Operation Yellow Jersey Defence. They weren’t also working up big leads in the green jersey standings, getting called back to aid dropped general classification teammates and sprinting with the best.
Vincenzo Nibali is a sturdy nominee, his late attack to win Stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de France into Sheffield was very impressive, then sharking it up on the cobbles as he rode away from nearly everyone in torrid conditions over the Roubaix stage that year to establish a race-winning lead.
Fabian Cancellara’s reigns in 2009 and 2010 were interspersed with assisting his teammates for the general classification, but without the all-round brilliance of van Aert in the sprints.
Perhaps the rider who most closely resembles van Aert is Marianne Vos in her most dominant period where she'd win the Giro Rosa overall, shred riders in crosswinds, fly over cobbles to classics victories and dominate bunch sprints.
Vos is regarded the best ever, and van Aert may well be on his way to similar heights.
The Tour de France continues with Stage 7, the first mountain stage of the race, finishing atop the Planche des Belles Filles. The race broadcast starts at 8.55pm AEST on the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker, with the SBS television coverage starting at 9.30pm AEST.
