Wout van Aert is one of the currently active riders who is most often able to surprise and deliver spectacular twists, sometimes (and unfortunately this has happened very often in recent years) for the worse, other times fortunately for the better.

The latest coup de théâtre orchestrated by the native of Herentals falls into the latter category: just ten days after the surgery he was forced to undergo to fix the "small ankle fracture" he suffered during the Exact Cross in Mol while chasing Mathieu van der Poel in the snow, the champion of Team Visma Lease a Bike incredibly returned to cycling on the road.

The outing, clearly, was not the most challenging or indicative, but the fact remains that by clipping back into the pedal and covering 33.3 kilometers around his home in Belgium at an average of 32.3 km/h (with the addition of his personal best on the 10% average gradient of Heidedreef), the signal sent by van Aert is absolutely positive and the consequences of the tumble on January 3rd are, all things considered, less serious than expected.

That said, it remains unrealistic, even with this rapid recovery (further proof of the Belgian's ability to react to adversity and quickly process injuries), that van Aert could return to the cross bike for the final mud events of the season.

Considering the danger faced, the lost training days, and the increasingly imminent start of the road season, it seems quite complex that the thirty-one-year-old Belgian would try to force a comeback risking further complications. Therefore, it is reasonable to remain, in the absence of current contraindications, with what his team announced after the accident, namely that his cross campaign for this year "is over".

Fans, Belgian and others, will therefore likely have to wait just under a year to see him navigate again in the discipline that launched him as a young rider, but they can certainly console themselves with the certainty that their favorite will be able to shine on asphalt sooner than many had predicted after the fall in Mol.