Van Aert takes first victory since crashing out of La Vuelta | Video

Wout van Aert got back to winning ways today, taking his first cyclocross victory of the season and his first race win after his Vuelta crash (Photo: Kristof Ramon-Red Bull)

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) has taken his first cyclocross win of the season, at Superprestige Gullegem, and his first victory of any kind since crashing out of La Vuelta four months ago.

Though Van Aert was today not racing against the world champion, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin - Deceuninck), he will savour his win just as much. It marks the formal conclusion of what was a long toad to recovery after his smash in Spain.

Leading the Vuelta points classification at the time, and with three stage wins already under his belt, Van Aert crashed on a descent on stage 16. He suffered severe lacerations to his knee, forcing him off the bike for a prolonged period and resulting in slow return to training and racing.

Today, that recovery was bookended with a win in Superprestige Gullegem (C2) ahead of Belgian champion Eli Iserbyt and his Pauwels Sauzen-Cibel Clementines team mate Michael Vanthourenhout.

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This time around, with Van Aert only riding his second 'cross race of the season, and clearly not back in full form, the winning margin was just 10 seconds, with Vanthourenhout only 31 seconds off the winner.

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Van Aert rode an aggressive race, closing gaps and trying to push away off the front from the midway point of the eight-lap contest. However, though his power finally distanced most of his rivals, Iserbyt managed to stay with him until the final lap.

However, Iserbyt made a mistake on that last passage of the circuit, which Van Aert capitalised on. He finally shook off his determined rival to take his first cyclocross win since the Benidorm round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup last January.

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