Wout van Aert messages his teammates: 'He will be our biggest supporter'

Sports director Grisha Nierman visited patients at Herenthals this morning. “Wout van Aert is fine, but he still has a lot of problems after a fall, surgery and scratches,” said the Visma-Lease a Bike rider.

“Hopefully he can go home soon, but that's not clear yet. Riders are very good at putting things into perspective and looking forward, but Woot wasn't far away this morning.”

“He also realizes that: You can have many ideas about what you want, but first you have to be able to go to the toilet without pain, so to speak. We hope that will be possible in a few days.”

“I don't know when you'll be able to ride a bike again. Considering the circumstances, things are going well, but it was nothing.”

“Foot still remembers everything, but he doesn't know what happened. It all happened so fast.”

“We have to be there for him now,” Nierman added, without going into details about the immediate future. “We always have a backup plan, but it's too early to think about that.”

“I hope he can go home soon. When we know more, we can talk about the next goals. Timeline, that's something for the doctors. But he won't be on his bike on Monday, right?”

Thiesge Pinot was shocked on Wednesday and believes he played a role in his leader's downfall. “But it seems that was not true,” he now explained. “Matthew (Jorgenson) saw it happen and Wout’s interpretation was also different from what I thought.”

“Without clear pictures I'm not sure, but with all the stories I can get a picture of what happened. You drive together to a point and no one wants to brake. Then sometimes accidents happen.”

“Foot doesn't really know what happened, but he was very focused and would have thought it was strange if he had tapped the back wheel of my car. He had the feeling that his bike had suddenly disappeared from under him.”

“It's going very fast and with such a hit I can imagine you no longer remember what happened. I think he will still be fine considering the speed,” he added.

“It was a racing accident. It is unfortunate that we lost our leader. We have been together more in the last three months than we have seen our partner. But I am proud of the way we have continued to ride.”

Van Aert has already sent messages to his teammates. “He says we can move forward, even if he's not there. He'll be our biggest supporter. That motivates us.”