Spring Classics

Van Aert After Flanders Fourth: "Paris-Roubaix Is Now Everything"

CYCLING LOOKOUT • 5 APRIL 2026

Four. The number that follows Wout van Aert around the 2026 spring like a shadow. Fourth at E3 Saxo Classic. Fourth at Dwars door Vlaanderen — though any honest account of that race notes he was caught in the final hundred metres after riding solo for thirty kilometres. And now fourth at the Tour of Flanders, where he was once again strong, composed and ultimately unable to match a version of Tadej Pogacar who appears to be operating in a class entirely his own. The Visma-Lease a Bike leader stood in the finish area and spoke with a quiet intensity that anyone who has watched him through years of near-misses will immediately recognise. "Paris-Roubaix is now everything," he said. "I have one more chance."

In isolation, fourth at Flanders is a result that most riders would accept as a solid spring classic performance. In the context of Van Aert's spring — a sequence of consistent high-level performances that has yielded almost nothing in terms of results — it landed with a familiar sting. He attacked at the right moments. He was in the front group when the race was decided on the Oude Kwaremont. He lost the podium in the sprint, where Mads Pedersen proved faster and Mathieu van der Poel, despite being spent from chasing Pogacar, still edged him for third. These are the margins that define the most talented, most unlucky spring campaign of Van Aert's career.

But Van Aert's history at Paris-Roubaix is different from his Flanders record. He has finished on the podium at the Hell of the North three times and won it twice, in 2021 and 2023 — a race that, uniquely among the Monuments, does not punish him for not possessing Van der Poel's or Pogacar's ability to accelerate explosively over short climbs. Roubaix rewards the engine Van Aert actually has: massive sustained power, extraordinary bike-handling, and the psychological hardness to keep driving into the cobble-induced suffering when every instinct says to ease. On the roads between Compiègne and the Roubaix velodrome, none of what has gone wrong this spring applies in the same way.

"I know what I can do on that road," Van Aert said. "Today was a difficult finish for me because of the way Tadej rode — he was just incredible, nobody could follow him. But Roubaix is different. It's longer, flatter, more about endurance, more about the fight in the peloton early. I know how to do that." It was not bravado. Van Aert rarely deals in bravado. It was a statement of fact from a rider who understands, with great precision, where his capacities lie and which terrain maximises them.

The timing works in his favour, too. The compressed schedule — seven days between Flanders and Roubaix — means fatigue could be a factor for some rivals. Pedersen, who finished second today after sprinting hard at the line, carries the form and confidence of a rider in peak condition. Pogacar, extraordinary as he is, will have expended considerable reserves in his solo escape. Van Aert, who rode hard but did not make the kind of singular effort that drains the body's deepest reserves, may enter next Sunday fresher than his rivals.

Visma-Lease a Bike will build their tactics for the Hell of the North around Van Aert as sole leader. Jan Tratnik, Christophe Laporte and Tiesj Benoot are expected to form his support on the pavé, providing the kind of cohesive team presence that has served the squad well at Roubaix before. The team knows they cannot outmanoeuvre Pogacar through individual brilliance; they can, however, control the tempo of a flat race in ways that are impossible in the anarchic climbs of Flanders.

"I haven't won yet this spring," Van Aert acknowledged with characteristic directness. "That hurts. But I'm still here, I'm still strong, and I know that the best race I can win is still coming." For a rider of Van Aert's calibre, with his history in the Hell of the North and the motivational fuel of a frustrating spring behind him, next Sunday at the Roubaix velodrome promises to be one of the most compelling storylines in the sport.

Van Aert After Flanders Fourth: "Paris-Roubaix Is Now Everything"

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