Cycling
Meet Wout van Aert, the giant all-rounder in the Tour de France spotlight
A Cyclo-cross champion and stage winner at all three Grand Tours, Wout van Aert is not only one of the most versatile cyclists in the world but also a rare athlete who puts family above all.
The 2025 Tour de France concluded with a dramatic and unforgettable finale. On the final ascent of Montmartre – a change to this year's route – Wout van Aert surged ahead to catch race leader Tadej Pogačar, denying him the stage victory and claiming his 10th career Tour de France stage win.
Van Aert is a towering presence in cycling, both in stature and accomplishments. Standing at 1.91m (6'3"), he rises well above the average pro cyclist, and his list of achievements is just as imposing. Alongside his 10 Tour de France stage wins, he boasts the 2022 green jersey, three La Vuelta stage victories, a Giro d’Italia stage win, two overall titles at the Tour of Britain, a Milan-Sanremo Monument, and three UCI Cyclocross World Championships.
After a brutal crash in last year's Vuelta a España, Van Aert struggled to regain his peak form. This year’s Tour wasn’t his strongest overall showing, but winning the final stage served as a powerful morale boost. He credits the victory to the unwavering support of his team throughout the race.
So how did Van Aert rise through the ranks to become one of the sport's most versatile and resilient stars? Here's a closer look at the journey of a rider who refuses to be counted out.
The biggest thing is that I never limited myself
01
He hails from a hotbed of cycling
Van Aert was born in 1994 in Herentals, an area that spawned one of Belgian cycling’s most famous sons in Rik van Looy – winner of all five of the sport’s one-day classics Monuments, two world titles and the Tour de France’s points classification. No pressure then.
With a background in the Herentals, van Aert was always likely to become a serious cyclist. It was in his blood too, with Jose van Aert – a Dutch rider who rode in the professional peloton from 1988 to 1994 and made appearances at the Tour and Giro d’Italia – a cousin on his father’s side.
However, van Aert senior never quite achieved the heady heights of the younger van Aert, and the pair only got in touch once van Aert was already a keen rider. Today, van Aert senior still attends the juniors’ races whenever he can.
van Aert racing at home in Belgium at the Tour of Flanders
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
02
Van Aert was a protégée
Family ties aside, van Aert was more than capable of making it on his own. During the 2011-12 season, he won the junior race at the Cyclo-cross Ruddervoorde in his native Belgium before going on to finish second in the Belgian and World Junior Championships.
The next year, he won the Under-23 Cyclo-cross Superprestige and bagged second place in the Under-23 World Cup.
He became Belgian champion for the first time in January 2016 before going on to complete a grand slam by winning the World Cup and securing a world championship that same season. In January 2018, he became Belgian champion for the third time and finished second in the Cyclo-cross World Championships in 2019.
Wout van Aert is a master of cyclo-cross's technical and hilly circuits
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
03
His versatility is unparalleled
While van Aert cut his teeth as a Cyclo-cross rider, his focus on the road since 2019 has shown that he isn't afraid of a bit of tarmac either. He's one of the leading time trialists in pro cycling and can match the sprinters when it comes to a mass finish. Plus, he's no slouch when it comes to attacking the peloton in the classics, having won such prestigious races as Milan-San Remo, Amstel Gold Race, E3 and Gent-Wevelgem.
Mountains don’t present a problem for van Aert, either. He’s often used as a domestique in major stage races, riding for the benefit of the team and leader, rather than trying to win the race. In the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Tour de France, he was there to help yellow jersey winner Jonas Vingegaard up the lower slopes of the big mountain stages, while he did the same for Simon Yates during his race-winning ride at the 2025 Giro d’Italia. It speaks volumes that each year van Aert finishes a Grand Tour, a team-mate finishes the race on the podium.
Climbing the 2,642m Col du Galibier is all in a day's work for Van Aert
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
Van Aert is also one off the world's best time trialers
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
His nine Tour de France stage victories meanwhile have seen him demonstrate his unparalleled individual versatility – from two individual time trial wins, a solo escape on a gruelling mountain stage in 2021 that included the Tour’s first double ascent of the iconic Mont Ventoux, and the sprint finish on the Champs-Élysées circuit that concludes the Tour each year.
04
Mastering his mind helped turn him into a world beater
Van Aert came up through the ranks with another multi-discipline phenom, Mathieu van der Poel, who, unfortunately, frequently got the better of him. Determined to improve, van Aert sought out the mental coach Rudy Heylen.
“He helped me turn things round,” van Aert has said of his time with the psychologist and guru.
It worked, too: he won his first national title and then the world crown within a few months of working with Heylen.
05
But his family is his greatest strength
For many athletes, family can seem a bit like an afterthought. Not so for van Aert, who married Sarah de Bie in 2018 and welcomed his first child, Georges, in 2021.
A proud father who regularly posts about family life on his social channels, van Aert further demonstrated his commitment to his growing brood when he withdrew from the 2023 Tour de France before stage 18 to return home for the birth of his and Sarah’s second child, Jerome.
“Luckily he has mommy’s eyes,” he later wrote.
06
He's up to nine stage wins in the Tour de France
Van Aert has reached 50 major wins on the road, but everyone knows that in cycling, the Tour is what everyone secretly obsesses over.
Wout Van Aert is always a threat for stages wins at the Tour de France
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
Van Aert’s first Tour de France win came with his debut in 2019 on Stage 10 when he out-muscled several of the more well-known sprinters for the win.
Having dropped out of 2023’s competition on family matters and narrowly missing out on stage wins in 2024 (with two second-place finishes and one third), his most recent win came in the individual time trial on Stage 20 of the Tour in 2022.
Though not normally a general classification rider, the Belgian has overall stage race wins at the Tour of Britain (2021 and 2023) and Danmark Rundt - Tour of Denmark (2018) in his palmares.
To date, van Aert’s Tour titles are:
- Points classification (2022)
- 9 individual stages (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)
- 1 TTT stage (2019)
- Combativity award (2022)
Wout Van Aert conquers Col du Tourmalet
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
07
Winning the green points classification jersey at the Tour de France in 2022 was a major achievement
Van Aert set the objective of winning the points classification competition at the 2022 Tour, and he pulled it off in dominant style. Van Aert clocked up 480 points in total along the way, 194 points more than Jasper Philipsen, the second-placed rider in the classification. Speaking after his win in the time trial on stage 20, that all but confirmed his green jersey win, van Aert said: "I thank all my team-mates and the whole team for those special three weeks, it's unbelievable."
Wout Van Aert powers through the Tour de France's gravel stage
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
08
Wearing the yellow jersey gave him wings
But nothing compares to donning the iconic yellow jersey as the general classification leader.
Van Aert had this honour for five days at the 2022 edition of the Tour de France. He says that the jersey “gave him wings” in the early part of the Tour, and when he won Stage 4, he gave the cameras a special celebration, flapping his arms like a bird on the finish line.
Fittingly, van Aert ranks the win as one of his most memorable. "It's not really common that the yellow jersey can attack and then win the stage solo."
09
He's taken some hard spills
For all of its ritual and class, road cycling is a deceptively brutal sport. And you don’t spend over a decade at the top without taking your share of the lumps.
Riding in the individual time trial on Stage 13 of the 2019 Tour de France, van Aert suffered a nasty crash that ended his race. In an interview months later, he admitted it turned into a career-threatening injury after an error during an operation where the surgeons missed a torn tendon. Thankfully, he defied medical expectations and was back in action by the end of the year.
Van Aert recovered early season injury to make the 2024 Tour de France
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
More recently, last season was blighted by injuries. In March 2024, he suffered a broken collarbone, sternum, bruised lung and a number of cracked ribs after a high-speed spill at Dwars door Vlaanderen. The pile-up on the eve of Flanders also robbed van Aert of his season centrepieces – the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
After returning for the Tour, Olympics and his first La Vuelta, he looked back to his best and was on course for the Spanish Grand Tour’s points jersey when a crash on a descent forced his retirement, with the resulting knee injury ruling him out for the rest of the year.
Wout van Aert’s return: From severe injury to Tour de France force
If the last 12 months have shown us anything, it’s that Wout van Aert has deeper reserves of resilience than most. After overcoming the injuries sustained at 2024’s Dwars door Vlaanderen, he recovered in time for that year’s Tour de France and stepped up as a cornerstone for Team Visma-Lease a Bike. While he didn’t add to his individual victories, he was a key lieutenant in his team leader Jonas Vingegaard’s second place in the general classification.
His bad luck wasn’t over, though, and he had to suffer the disappointment of seeing his nailed-on La Vuelta points jersey win slip away from him with just five days of racing to go. However, Van Aert built himself back up, silencing the doubters after a winless spring classics campaign with a commanding stage win at the Giro d’Italia. He would play a vital role in Simon Yates’ pink jersey victory too, positioning himself perfectly up the road on the penultimate stage to assist in his team-leader’s attack before burying himself to help the Brit build an unassailable lead in the overall.
In both comebacks, Van Aert has proved why his name is synonymous with grit and determination – and why he is considered one of the most formidable cyclists of our time.
An incredible work ethic has driven Van Aert to cycling greatness
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
10
There are no limits to his ability
All in all, Van Aert puts such a successful career down to a resounding (and highly admirable) work ethic. "The biggest thing is that I never limited myself – I've never thought that's impossible," he says, reflecting on his breakthroughs at the Tour de France. "I was just always open-minded, always wanting to give it a go. A lot of people don't try it because they think they can't."
Van Aert races with class, heart and panache, but while there are still many more races to win, it's how a given race pans out and the way he achieves his victories that brings him the most pleasure. "I really like challenges, and it’s an even better feeling when you achieve something that everybody thinks is impossible,” he says. “I want to be known as someone who tried to do special things.”
