Visma | Lease a Bike dismisses Giro rumors about strong climbing van Aert as pure speculation

"As always, the Amstel Gold Race was a challenging day," he said. "Wout and Tiesj once again showed their excellent form in the finale. Ben Tulett also rode very well, though he had an unfortunate puncture at a crucial moment. Perhaps more was possible today had we responded to Evenepoel’s move, but overall, we’re satisfied with having two riders in the top ten," said Van Dongen.

Van Aert himself also called the decision not to follow Evenepoel a misjudgment. "I'm satisfied with this result but missed Remco's move. He was super strong, but I misjudged the situation. I didn't realize enough that we were still in contention for the win," said the team leader.

"I don't blame them," said Van Dongen. "Not reacting to Evenepoel’s attack was a misjudgment. I didn’t believe we could close the gap to Pogacar then. Still, I’m happy with how I felt. Like in recent races, I was upfront, but the icing on the cake remained out."

In the end, Van Aert did take fourth place, winning the sprint after the leading trio. He did so against someone like Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla) after losing to Evenepoel two days earlier and to Neilson Powless of EF earlier this spring in Dwars door Vlaanderen. "He was very happy about that on the bus. It looked good. Don't ask me how it happened, because I don't know. But he feels it's a positive end to this spring, in which he finished fourth three times, of course."

And... anyone who looked at the leading group in the Amstel Gold Race saw only lightweight riders alongside van Aert. "You took the words right out of my mouth. When I heard the composition of that group on Radio Tour, they were all climbers. Wout keeps up well there, and you also see he comes through very well in the final."

Here and there, some analysts- trainer Jim van den Berg and former rider Tom Danielson—have already suggested that van Aert might have the Giro GC in mind, but Van Dongen can't suppress a chuckle when we put that suggestion to him. "No... there's so much talk, but we won't let that influence us. Wout wouldn't have ridden the Amstel if he had wanted to ride a good GC in the Giro. That's just speculation."