Benoot's candid assessment: "Van Aert not at last year's level, Visma | LAB does not dare to bet money on Vingegaard"

Tiesj Benoot is deeply impressed by Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert, who have successfully prepared themselves for the Tour de France in a race against time. Both leaders fell hard earlier in the year, but Benoot will be at the start on June 29 in Florence to work hard for the both of them. The Belgian of Visma | Lease a Bike explained to HLN how remarkable it is that Vingegaard and Van Aert have made it.

First, there’s Van Aert, who unlike Vingegaard, has already raced again in the Tour of Norway in May, after suffering multiple fractures in a crash during Dwars door Vlaanderen in March. Benoot also saw his teammate in action. "He just wasn’t himself there," he says.

He also indicates that Visma | Lease a Bike is not throwing up a smokescreen as we head towards the Tour. "I formally and with one hundred percent certainty deny that. If you say you’re good, they think you’re arrogant or full of yourself. If you say you’re the underdog and the favorites are racing elsewhere, they think you're throwing sand in their eyes or playing hide and seek... Would we as a team deliberately leave people in the dark, you can’t believe that yourself, can you?"

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Tiesj Benoot

Benoot sees less Van Aert and doubts Vingegaard

Benoot himself is not exactly sure how the pair are doing either. "Wout has made progress in recent weeks, but he’s not at the level of last year and certainly not that of two years ago," he says. How good Vingegaard is? According to the Belgian, that is "the ten-million-dollar question". "I find it very difficult to judge their form myself. When we train together at altitude, it’s not like racing during a mountain stage in the Tour. It’s not like we are testing each other to see who is the best."

He continues: "Moreover, when Jonas does a three-times-ten-minutes interval at full throttle, I don’t see him in action. I know what they look like, but I don't dare predict how good they are. Neither do Wout and Jonas themselves. Every athlete coming back from an injury is uncertain. Only after the first weekend will we be able to assess how good they are."

"Jonas is riding the Tour because the team management thinks there’s a chance he can be top. But I am one hundred percent sure that no one from the team would dare bet money on Jonas reaching the podium. They do hope for that, but don’t know," Benoot adds. "Imagine if Tiesjke Benoot had an eight-week training preparation, he would never make the Tour selection. Jonas and Wout can do it because they have so much talent and can be very good very quickly."