THE MAKING OF WOUT VAN AERT

From illicit beers to sprint-packed training rides, Chris Marshall-Bell uncovers how Wout van Aert became the best all-round rider in the world

-  Chris Marshall-Bell

Teacher Ann Hannes is walking purposefully through the corridors of Thomas More University in Geel, Belgium. It’s October 2012. By her side is an 18-year-old student of applied computer science. He has a growing but slender frame, with short dark brown hair swept to the side. “He looked like a boy of 16,” Hannes says as she remembers Wout van Aert.

As they get to their destination, the office of the elite sports coordinator, they knock on the door and are swiftly let in. Hannes, van Aert’s counsellor, has one job: to persuade the coordinator that van Aert, second in the junior cyclocross World Championships earlier in the year, deserves to be recognised as a TopSporter - an elite athlete - thereby granting him extra time for deadlines and exams so that he can focus on his sport.

After some wrangling, Hannes eventually convinces the coordinator. "I succeeded but it wasn't easy because nobody knew who Wout was."

Young van Aert might have a great record on the bike but back in the classroom, where he spends four or five days a week learning about web design and how to program computers, his copy book isn't spotless. "He was a child of his time," Hannes recalls. "An early adopter of social media - I had to tell him more than once to put his smartphone away, to get off Facebook and Instagram."

Belgian v Dutch

Hannes quietens the class - she has a task for her students: they have to write down their life goals and how they are working towards them. Most answers relate to the course they are studying, but not van Aert's. "He stood up and said, 'I want to become world champion," Hannes remembers. Sixteen months later, no longer a university student, van Aert came good on his dream, claiming the U23 cyclo-cross rainbow jersey.