Wout van Aert, first center of the season

First 2024 victory for Wout van Aert

It's arrived in Portugal, on the roads of the Volta Ao Algarve, the first victory of the season for Wout van Aert, one of the most awaited protagonists of the spring cycling Classics season: the Visma-Lease a Bike rider in fact won the third stage of the Portuguese race, from Vila Real de Santo Antonio to Tavira, a 192.2-kilometer-long stage.

Van Aert preceded, in a sprint that è managed to dominate without any particular difficulty, Portuguese Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates) and German Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor Pro Cycling Team). Gerben Thijssen (Intermarché-Wanty), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost), Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl Trek), Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Yevgeniy Fedorov (Astana Qazaqstan) and Santiago Mesa (Efapel) rounded out the day’s top 10. Daniel Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe) è instead, the leader of the general classification.

Specializing not only on road races but also in cyclocross (where he won world gold three times at the elite level), Van Aert has won a Strade Bianche, a Milan-San Remo, a Ghent-Wevelgem, an Amstel Gold Race, two editions of the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, nine stages in the Tour de France and three national championships, one in-line and two time trials.

The 2024 cycling season is about to get into full swing: among the most important events of the spring are the Strade Bianche (March 2), Paris-Nice (March 3-10), Tirreno-Adriatico (March 4-10), Milan-San Remo (March 16), E3 Saxo Classic (March 22), Ghent-Wevelgem (March 24), Tour of Flanders (March 31), Paris-Roubaix (April 7), the'Amstel Gold Race (April 14), the Walloon Arrow (April 17), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 21) and the Tour of Romandie (April 23-28).