Wout van Aert slipped back into racing on Sunday as if he’d never left. Unannounced, unhyped — and then gone off the front alone. He won the Marly Grav in Valkenburg, a UCI Gravel World Series round, with a solo attack in the closing stages of the 150km race through the hills of South Limburg. It was his first race since Paris-Roubaix four weeks ago. He looked every bit as sharp.
The Winning Move
Van Aert was aggressive from the gun. He moved to the front inside the first eight kilometres, then made a major acceleration with over 100km still to race — the kind of move that makes the rest of the field look at each other and do the math. Gravel world champion Florian Vermeersch was initially the only rider able to respond, before the race settled into a front selection of five: Van Aert, Vermeersch, Jonathan Vervenne, Niels Vandeputte, and Rick Ottema. That group pulled clear with around 20km to go, leaving the rest of the field roughly two minutes in arrears.
He’d already tested them once — going clear briefly around 60km to go before being brought back. The decisive move came on a rough forest path around 22 kilometres from the finish. He accelerated hard. Nobody could match it, not even Vermeersch — riding in his rainbow jersey as defending gravel world champion. By the 16.8km-to-go marker, the gap was already 30 seconds and growing.
Twenty-two kilometres of solo riding later, Van Aert crossed the line alone. Niels Vandeputte (Alpecin-Premier Tech) finished second at 44 seconds, Rick Ottema (EEW-VDK) third, Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) fourth, and Vervenne fifth.
Van Aert’s Words
“My main goal today was to stay out of trouble. I tried to stay near the front the whole time to avoid risks as much as possible. When there were eventually six of us left, it became a lot easier, because we no longer had to fight for our positions. I felt I still had something left in the tank and tried to accelerate on one of the tougher sections. That was a good moment.”
His decision to race at all was characteristically low-key. Van Aert had spent much of the post-Roubaix period on holiday — he only resumed training on 22 April. His entry surfaced first on WielerFlits on Saturday, after he was spotted reconnoitring the course on Friday alongside directeur sportif Maarten Wynants and Nathan van Hooydonck. Before the race, he was candid about where his preparation actually stood.
“I didn’t have any expectations, because this past month I’ve been on holiday a lot more than I’ve actually been training. I was expecting to have fun.”
Context — Form, History and the Rainbow Jersey Subplot
There was an unavoidable echo to Paris-Roubaix. Four weeks ago, Van Aert out-sprinted a UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider in a rainbow jersey — Tadej Pogačar — to win at the Vélodrome. On Sunday, on gravel roads in Limburg, he did it again, this time leaving Vermeersch behind. Different stakes, same narrative.
Van Aert knows Valkenburg well. He won the cyclocross world championship here in 2018 and took Amstel Gold Race in the same region in 2021. His only previous gravel start of note came at a 2023 gravel event in Houffalize, where he won by nine minutes.
The Marly Grav — now in its fourth edition — incorporated sections of last October’s UCI Gravel World Championship course, the same event where Vermeersch claimed his title. Last year’s edition was won by Tim Wellens and Lorena Wiebes. In the women’s race on Sunday, Wiebes successfully defended her title, outsprinting Larissa Hartog, Ilse Pluimers, Amandine Muller, and Nele Johanna Laing.
What’s Next
Sunday’s result carries weight beyond the win itself. The top 25% of finishers earn qualification spots for the UEC European Gravel Championships in Houffalize on 30 August and the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia. For Van Aert personally, the Tour de France remains the primary target — he has already spoken about the opening weekend’s team time trial as a key objective for Visma | Lease a Bike. With form like this, his rivals will be paying attention.
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